The devastating earthquake in the Chinese province of Sichuan struck an area that was not expected to suffer seismic activity of such magnitude. Yet topographic analyses of the region indicate active deformation, suggesting a way of refining maps of earthquake risk elsewhere.
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WILL OUIMET
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Acknowledgements
Our work in Sichuan was spearheaded by colleagues at MIT and supported by funding from the Continental Dynamics program at NSF. It benefitted from collaboration with researchers from the Chengdu Institute of Geology and Mineral Resources, particularly Z. Chen. Subsequent work by E.K. on active faults in eastern Tibet was conducted collaboratively with E. Wang (Chinese Academy of Sciences) and supported by the Tectonics program at NSF.
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Kirby, E., Whipple, K. & Harkins, N. Topography reveals seismic hazard. Nature Geosci 1, 485–487 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo265
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo265
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