First video of an earthquake fault cracking has revealed another surprise
A first-of-its-kind video showing the ground cracking during a major earthquake is even more remarkable than previously thought. It not only captures a ground motion never caught on video before but also shows the crack curving as it moves.
This curvy movement has been inferred from the geological record and from "slickenlines" — scrape marks on the sides of faults — but it had never been seen in action, geophysicist Jesse Kearse, a postdoctoral researcher currently at Kyoto University in Japan, said in a statement.
"Instead of things moving straight across the video screen, they moved along a curved path that has a convexity downwards, which instantly started bells ringing in my head," Kearse said, "because some of my previous research has been specifically on curvature of fault slip, but from the geological record."
The video — captured by a security camera near Thazi, Myanmar — shows the ground rupturing during a magnitude 7.7 quake that hit the region on March 28. It shows the ground shaking, followed by a crack opening up. These ground ruptures are relatively common during big quakes, but they'd never been caught on video.
Kearse said he watched the video with chills down his spine shortly after it was uploaded to YouTube. On his fifth or sixth viewing, he noticed that the crack was curvy. He and his colleague at Kyoto University, geophysicist Yoshihiro Kaneko, then analyzed the video more closely. They found that the crack curves sharply at first and then accelerates to a peak velocity of about 10.5 feet per second (3.2 meters per second) of movement, slipping a total of 8.2 feet (2.5 meters) in 1.3 seconds. After hitting its top velocity, the crack straightens and slows.
The findings suggest that the curvature happens because stresses on the fault right at the ground surface are lower than the stresses on the fault deeper in the Earth. This creates an uneven pattern in how the fault moves. "The curvature holds important information about the dynamics of the rupture," Kearse said in an annotated video of the slip he posted on YouTube.
Related: The San Andreas Fault: Facts about the crack in California's crust that could unleash the 'Big One'
The differing stresses at the surface push the fault off its course, "and then it catches itself and does what it's supposed to do," Kearse said in the statement.
RELATED STORIES
—'This is a very big earthquake': The science behind Myanmar's magnitude 7.7 earthquake
—20 largest earthquakes in history
—Scientists find hidden mechanism that could explain how earthquakes 'ignite'
The dynamics of these curvatures depend in part on which way the rupture travels, so an understanding of the curves can reveal clues about how past earthquakes unfolded and help scientists better predict future ground ruptures.
The research was published today (July 18) in the journal The Seismic Record.
Editor's Note: This article was updated at 8:20 p.m. EDT to note that the new research has now been published in The Seismic Record.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Medscape
2 hours ago
- Medscape
Long COVID Gene Variants: A Step Toward a Diagnostic Test?
A large-scale global study has identified genetic variants that are risk factors for long COVID, a discovery that helps researchers better understand the biological systems involving the disease and one small, early step toward the elusive goal of developing a long COVID diagnostic test. International researchers with the Long COVID Host Genetics Initiative used data from 33 independent studies and 19 countries across North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia to analyze the genomes of nearly 16,000 patients with long COVID, representing populations from six genetic ancestries. Nearly 1.9 million controls were included in the genome-wide association study, a research method that scans complete sets of DNA to identify genetic variations associated with a specific trait or disease. Genetic variants found in the FOXP4 gene had a statistically significant risk linked to long COVID, the study, published in Nature Genetics , found. The FOXP4 gene is known to impact lung function, and its expression levels were higher in those with long COVID than in controls. In addition, the risk variants had a consistent effect across different ancestries. The researchers also found a causal relationship between a SARS-CoV-2 infection and long COVID and an additional causal risk between infections severe enough to require hospitalization and long COVID. Researchers also analyzed possible connections between variants associated with long COVID and those linked to other diseases and conditions. Scientists said the overall findings provided evidence that was consistent with long COVID research that suggests both individual genetic variants and environmental risk factors contribute to disease risk. The findings also provide genetic proof linking abnormal lung physiology and the development of long COVID, the authors concluded; however, they noted that long COVID symptoms are not only limited to lung function and may include fatigue and cognitive dysfunction as well. The study's co-author, Hanna Ollila, PhD, with the Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland, underscored that the newly discovered genetic variants were not predictive for clinical tests or personal disease risk. 'The findings from our study, and from genome-wide association studies in general, tell about biological mechanisms behind a disease. This can then help to understand the disease better. For example, is it a disease neuronal, immune, metabolic, and so on?' said Ollila, who is also a researcher with the Department of Anesthesia and Center for Genomic Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston. There are still many steps between these types of discoveries and the development of a diagnostic test, she explained, since these types of genetic variants do not function like high-impact variants such as the BRCA mutations in breast cancer. 'In other words, they do not strongly predict whether someone will develop long COVID at the individual level,' Ollila said. 'Instead, they highlight the biological systems involved in the disease. In this case, our findings point to immune pathways related to lung function.' Ollila explained that genetics can guide diagnostic development by pointing to underlying mechanisms, which may then help identify biomarkers in blood or other tissues. These biomarkers could eventually contribute to diagnostic tools, but it is a process that takes time and collaboration and often depends on progress across several fields of research including imaging and clinical phenotyping. Researchers hope that when larger sample sizes become available for bigger studies, the analyses and understanding of the correlations will become more precise, bringing more understanding and clarity on genetic risk factors, biological mechanisms, and biomarkers that could someday help with disease diagnosis. 'We are likely still several years away, and possibly even a decade or more, from having a clinically useful diagnostic test based on genetic or biological markers for long COVID,' said Ollila. 'That said, progress is accelerating thanks to the growing number of well-characterized cohorts and international collaborations. While these genetic findings are not yet ready for clinical application, they are an important step toward understanding long COVID, its relationship with other diseases, and the disease mechanisms that modulate risk for long COVID.'
WIRED
2 hours ago
- WIRED
South Korea Plans to Build a Base on the Moon
Jul 23, 2025 5:00 AM The country's newly formed space agency wants to establish a lunar base by 2045. An artist's illustration of a lunar base. Illustration:China, India, and Japan are not the only countries on the Asian continent looking to establish themselves in the fledgling space economy. South Korea also wants to be in the space race, and even plans for a presence beyond Earth's orbit, with ambitions to create its own lunar base within 20 years. At a public meeting held at the National Research Foundation of Korea on July 17, the South Korean AeroSpace Administration (KASA) released a roadmap proposing 'five core missions, including low-Earth orbit and microgravity exploration, lunar exploration, and solar and space science missions,' The Korean Times has reported. KASA had already proposed placing a robotic lander on the lunar surface by 2032, but the new master plan is much more ambitious, including the development of a new lunar lander by 2040, as well as the construction of a lunar economic base by 2045. The Republic of Korea is not starting from scratch in the field of lunar exploration. In mid-2022, the country launched Danuri, its first lunar probe, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Danuri reached lunar orbit later that year and is still in operation, studying the moon's natural resources with its suite of instruments. It is also intended to test space technology that will be used by KASA on future missions. This mission was part of the first phase of the Korean Lunar Exploration Program. Phase two includes the launch in 2032 of the aforementioned robotic module, as well as another lunar orbiter and a rover weighing 20 kilograms. This second phase will no longer rely on a SpaceX rocket or even a pad on US soil; rather, the mission will be launched using the country's KSLV-III rocket, which is still under development, from the Naro Space Center, located on the Republic of Korea's southern coast. The Korea Institute of Geosciences and Mineral Resources is assisting with preparations by deploying prototype lunar rovers in abandoned coal mines to evaluate technologies that could be used in upcoming space mining tasks. My KASA Is Your NASA KASA was created only recently, in May 2024, by the South Korean government, as a domestic version of NASA. It now oversees the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI), which has handled development of the country's aerospace technologies since its establishment in 1989. Both KARI and the republic's national space research organization, the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute, are now sub-agencies of KASA. With its new special agency and the backing of the private sector, South Korea is seeking to position itself among the top five countries in the field of space exploration. KASA also envisions landing a module on Mars in 2045, as well as the development of probes to monitor solar activity and improve space security, including, by 2035, the deployment of a solar observation satellite at the L4 Lagrange point (a stable position in space where small objects are held in place by the gravitational forces of the sun and Earth). South Korea, of course, is not the only country looking to build a lunar base by the middle of this century or to develop space economy infrastructure. Through the Artemis program, NASA intends to establish a lunar base within the next decade—if political conflicts do not derail that project. China, in collaboration with Russia and other countries, has also set a goal of building a lunar base by 2045. India also has its sights set on the moon, with plans for its own base on the surface by 2047. This story originally appeared on WIRED en Español and has been translated from Spanish.
Medscape
4 hours ago
- Medscape
How Myeloma Plays Hide and Seek With CAR T Cells
TOPLINE: G protein-coupled receptor, class C, group 5, member D (GPRC5D) loss after chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy in multiple myeloma (MM) occurs through biallelic genetic inactivation and hypermethylation-driven epigenetic silencing. Among 10 patients who relapsed, eight showed GPRC5D loss, while two had mixed expression. METHODOLOGY: Researchers conducted whole-genome sequencing (WGS) and whole-genome bisulfite sequencing (WGBS) analysis on MM samples from 10 patients who relapsed after GPRC5D CAR T-cell therapy. Analysis included CD138+ MM cells isolated from bone marrow samples with purity exceeding 80%, with tumor samples sequenced at 100× coverage and matched normal samples at 30× coverage. Investigators performed targeted bisulfite sequencing to evaluate methylation status of GPRC5D regulatory regions across seven MM cell lines, with library construction and sequencing conducted by specialized institutes. Patient characteristics included median age of 57.5 years (range, 44-66 years), equal gender distribution, and 90% having high-risk cytogenetic abnormalities. TAKEAWAY: Genetic alterations were identified in three cases: one with homozygous deletion in GPRC5D gene, another with biallelic loss in regulatory regions, and a third with homozygous deletions in both TNFRSF17 and GPRC5D after sequential anti-B-cell maturation antigen and anti-GPRC5D CAR T-cell therapies. Multiple hypermethylation sites were present in transcriptional regulatory elements of GPRC5D gene in five posttreatment MM samples, with no genetic changes detected at GPRC5D locus in seven cases. GPRC5D expression showed inverse correlation with methylation levels in regulatory regions of MM cell lines, with azacitidine treatment inducing GPRC5D messenger RNA and protein expression in hypermethylated MM cell lines. All 10 patients achieved complete response or better as best response with median time to best response of 2.5 months (range, 0.5-15.3 months), though median time to disease progression was 15.9 months (range, 3.0-26.5 months). IN PRACTICE: 'Our findings highlight that biallelic genetic inactivation and hypermethylation-driven epigenetic silencing are key mechanisms contributing to GPRC5D loss and treatment resistance,' wrote the authors of the study. SOURCE: The study was led by Mingshan Niu, Blood Diseases Institute, Xuzhou Medical University in Xuzhou, China. It was published online in Blood. LIMITATIONS: According to the authors, the structural variant deletions on chromosomes may be missed by 100× WGS in patients with a clone size less than 20%. The limit of detection for quantitative polymerase chain reaction ranged from 16 to 50 copies per reaction, indicating sensitivity limitations of these detection methods. Additionally, genetic alterations in the GPRC5D locus could either be acquired after CAR T-cell therapy or selected from preexisting clones, necessitating more sensitive detection methods for dynamic monitoring. DISCLOSURES: The research received support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (82270181) and the Natural Science Foundation of the Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions of China (21KJA320005). The authors reported having no relevant conflicts of interest. This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.
