Beneath the Himalayas sleep afamily of faults . For a long sentence , geologists have been aware that many within this 2,400 - klick - long ( 1,500 - mi ) arc have the power to decimate cities across some extremely thickly settled nation , including Pakistan , India , and Bangladesh .
Bhutan , though , which also lie along the arc , has always been considered unable to experience a significant quake . As a young study inGeophysical Research Lettersreveals , this is n’t the sheath at all . In fact , the full arc is “ seismogenic , ” in that it ’s able to rupture at any point , include beneath Bhutan .
Until now , Bhutan had no detailed seismological records , so a squad lead by the University of Lausanne decided to investigate . It seemed unusual to them that this land was the only one along the arc to not have experienced a historic seism – except , weirdly , a 6.0 metre result in 2009 .
While seek to work out how the mistake beneath Bhutan had unexpectedly moved , the researchers make out across the biography of a Buddhist monk and tabernacle builder by the name of Tenzin Lekpai Dondup . unusually , this papers described a sinewy earthquake in the region that took place in May 1714 , one that was followed by plenitude of aftershock .
Frustratingly , though , it did not fix where the earthquake took place .
A costumed monk dances at Bhutan ’s Tsechu Festival . theskaman306 / Shutterstock
However , at the same clip , aseparate studyon the region revealed that some significant erect geological fault movement took place in Bhutan that date back to sometime between 1642 and 1836 . combine this discovery with his own team ’s work , result author György Hetényi – a geophysicist at Lausanne – managed to nail the emplacement of the 1714 temblor .
Taking place in westerly Bhutan , the land - shatter 7.5 – 8.5 M result care to unzip up to 300 km ( 186 miles ) of the fault line , which represent a whopping 8 pct of the entire electric discharge . As significant as this is by itself , it importantly prove that the intact Himalayan electric discharge can and has experienced powerful earthquake .
“ We are able for the first prison term to say , yes , Bhutan is really seismogenic , and not a quiet place in the Himalayas , ” Hetényi said in astatement .
The Himalayan arc shift web is improbably complex . The collision ofIndia and Eurasiaaround 40 million years ago – a titanic tectonic conflict that proceed to this day – pushed up the crust into the sky , destroy an entire continentas it did so by forcing it down into the fiery mantle . In doing so , a disorderly internet of varyingly mobile faults was created .
One of these faults , the Main Himalayan Thrust ( MHT ) , appeared along northerly India , which is slither beneath the Himalayas at a charge per unit of around 2 centimeters ( 0.79 inches ) per twelvemonth . A 30 km ( 18.6 stat mi ) stretch of it stick out forwards in April of last year , creating a shallow 7.8 M quake thatrocked Nepaland killed more than 23,000 mass .
Another major regional fault , a megathrust beneath the Indo - Burman raft ramble – the boundary between the Indian and Eurasian plate – is due to steal in the near time to come after position dormant for around 400 year . When it does , it will farm at least a 9.0 M earth tremor that endanger the lives of 140 million people mainly last inBangladesh .
Knowing that the total Himalayan arc mesh is able to slew is decidedly disconcerting . It will never all slip at once , of course , but the unmixed weighing machine of the combat-ready zone is hard to fathom . For comparison , theSan Andreas Fault , which is soon to loose the so - called “ big one ” that will devastate much of California , is 1,300 kilometers ( 800 mi ) long .
The Himalayan electric discharge is well-nigh twice that size of it .
The Himalayas . Olga Danylenko / Shutterstock
