In Southeast Asia a new tetonic plate is being formed, according Dr. Marleen Nyst, who received her PhD from TU Delft last Monday. This means the region can expect earthquakes.
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The Soendablok, the region comprising Malaysia, Thailand and the Indonesia islands of Soelawesi and Borneo, shifts with a rotating movement along the Euro-Asian plate at a speed of several millimetres a year, Nyst discovered. The crack is in Southeast China; therefore, the Chinese can expect severe earthquakes.
For her research, Nyst used the Global Positioning System, which consists of 24 satellites that emit radio waves and allow researchers to ascertain an exact geographical position. “In the field, we use portable receivers to make contact with the GPS-satellites so that we can determine our position on earth,” explains Nyst. “We receive radio waves from a couple of GPS-satellites, whose locations we know, and with help of a laptop we can determine our own position. Every year we do this at several recognizable points. Because these points move, we know the earth’s crust has been moving.”
Until fifteen years ago, geologists determined movements in the Earth’s crust using data from earthquakes and from the age of stones and rocks. For example, by looking at two continents and estimating the average distance between continents over a million years, they could determine the age of the rocks at the continents edges. The speeds they calculate are a rough average over millions of years. But thanks to GPS-measurements, it’s now possible to make measurements on a time-scale of years. The inside of the tectonic plates appear to be constant in their speeds, but in the cracks the movement is jerking .”
In Southeast Asia a new tetonic plate is being formed, according Dr. Marleen Nyst, who received her PhD from TU Delft last Monday. This means the region can expect earthquakes.
The Soendablok, the region comprising Malaysia, Thailand and the Indonesia islands of Soelawesi and Borneo, shifts with a rotating movement along the Euro-Asian plate at a speed of several millimetres a year, Nyst discovered. The crack is in Southeast China; therefore, the Chinese can expect severe earthquakes.
For her research, Nyst used the Global Positioning System, which consists of 24 satellites that emit radio waves and allow researchers to ascertain an exact geographical position. “In the field, we use portable receivers to make contact with the GPS-satellites so that we can determine our position on earth,” explains Nyst. “We receive radio waves from a couple of GPS-satellites, whose locations we know, and with help of a laptop we can determine our own position. Every year we do this at several recognizable points. Because these points move, we know the earth’s crust has been moving.”
Until fifteen years ago, geologists determined movements in the Earth’s crust using data from earthquakes and from the age of stones and rocks. For example, by looking at two continents and estimating the average distance between continents over a million years, they could determine the age of the rocks at the continents edges. The speeds they calculate are a rough average over millions of years. But thanks to GPS-measurements, it’s now possible to make measurements on a time-scale of years. The inside of the tectonic plates appear to be constant in their speeds, but in the cracks the movement is jerking .”
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