Newly Placed Monitoring Devices Hit by Big Quake

LA JOLLA —  UC San Diego scientists expect to reap the most extensive data ever recorded for a major earthquake from Thursday’s devastating shake in Mexico as a result of measuring equipment placed in that nation’s coastal region about nine months ago.

“We anticipated the quake and we’ve got enough equipment there to say it will be the best-recorded major quake ever in terms of recording the (strong) motion waves,” James Brune at the UC Scripps Institution of Oceanography said Thursday.

“It’s a terrible disaster for Mexico but, scientifically speaking, it’s a bonanza.”

In cooperation with the National University of Mexico, 30 measuring sites were selected last year in the state of Guerrero, where previous research by Brune and Sri Krishna Singh of the National University had suggested the possibility of large quakes.

“The international scientific community has realized the need to record earthquake motion close to epicenters,” Brune said. Funding has come from the National Science Foundation in Washington.

Brune said that the epicenter of Thursday’s quake had not been precisely determined yet. “But we know the epicenter is on the edge of the (300-kilometer-long) array of measuring devices,” Brune said. “And we have some evidence that the quake ruptured into the middle of the array.”

A member of the Scripps research team left for Mexico late Thursday. Brune said that more than a week will be required to reach certain monitoring stations, which he said are in mountain areas where “roads are now closed due to landslides.” Sorting of the data will take months.

“We don’t know even if the computers the devices are linked to in Mexico City are operating at this point,” Brune said.