Earlier this year, the US Geological Survey predicted that there is a 7% chance that a major 8.0 earthquake will rock Southern California within the next 30 years. However, a new study conducted by NASA says that there is a 99.9% likelihood of a large 5.0+ quake occurring, such as last year’s La Habra quake, within two-and-a-half years.
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Even a few seconds warning prior to a devastating earthquake could save thousands of lives. But Earthquake Early Warning (EEW) systems are too pricey for governments in some of the most earthquake prone regions – including Asia, Central and South America, and the Caribbean. Now a group of scientists think they may have found a solution: a crowd-sourced EEW network using consumers’ smartphones.

Writing in the April 10, 2015 issue of Science Advances, nine researchers – hailing from the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, California; CalTech and JPL in Pasadena, the National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping at the University of Houston, and Carnegie-Mellon – explain the rationale behind their research as well as its results.
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