The extreme rainfall across San Diego and throughout California is helping end the drought but it's also creating flooding issues which could lead to another problem -- earthquakes.
San Diego Geologist Dr. Pat Abbott has written a textbook called natural disasters. In looking at the potential for quakes, he cited a 2008 China earthquake in which more than 80,000 people were killed. Not far from the fault line, a new reservoir had been constructed and filled with water. Scientists believe the weight of that water may have contributed to the pressure on a nearby fault line.
Dr. Abbot says the principle is, the more weight on the surface the greater it will sink. He says most people may think the earth is strong enough to hold up all the water but science shows that filled reservoirs or rainwater soaking into the earth can put an incredible amount of weight on the earth creating the potential for triggering fault movement.
The good news is that California's reservoirs are away from fault lines and old enough to have already caused the ground to sink. But Abbott says, the potential for earthquakes could still exist if a large body of standing water develops in a new area near an active fault.
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