<MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE JET PROPULSION LABORATORY CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION PASADENA, CALIF. 91109 TELEPHONE 818/354-5011

Contact:
Alan Buis
818/354-0474

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 10, 2002

Space Survey Yields New Info on California’s Landscape, Quakes

A space-based survey by a research team from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., and Rice University, Houston, Texas, offers new insights into the history of central California's varied topography and the region's earthquake hazards.

High resolution JPG (404 KB)

Using several years of data from precise space-based surveying methods such as the Global Positioning System, researchers Dr. Donald Argus of JPL and Dr. Richard Gordon of Rice University found a strong correlation between the degree to which the Pacific tectonic plate and its adjacent Sierran microplate push against one another (converge) or pull apart from one another (diverge) and the height, extent and age of California's coastal mountains. Their results were published recently in the Geological Society of America Bulletin and were featured as a recent "Editor's Choice" in Science.

"This precise positioning data is allowing us to better understand why central California's coastal mountains are where they are and where they're growing," Argus said.

Much of coastal California rides on the Pacific plate, while the Sierran plate serves as a buffer zone of sorts for the North American plate, which carries the rest of the continental United States.
1-10-02 AB
#2002-007

(More)

Dan