Recreate earthquakes in laboratories

US researchers have used a giant reel to conduct experiments to help explain how to trigger large earthquakes and reveal possible earthquake risks.

According to Live Science, large earthquakes develop as rifts spreading along a broken point. These faults will continue to activate countless other breaks.

Earthquakes are often the result of the movement of geological faults on the Earth's crust.

To replicate this fracture process, laboratory earthquakes often use two blocks of rock pressed together until the final pressure causes the blocks to break. The broken pieces of stone were then glued and slid on each other along the crack. Scientists believe that this approach shows what happened to the faults in the earthquake.

However, the 'fake' earthquakes in traditional tests are usually thousands or even millions of times less intense than real, terrifying earthquakes. And we still do not know whether these tests properly reflect the physical characteristics of the large earthquake.

Instead of relying on an engine that creates a gradual and continuous force on rock like previous experiments, the University of Oklahoma structural geologist Ze'ev Reches and colleagues wanted to see what happens if they suddenly exerted tremendous force on the stone.

To do this, they used a giant rotary flywheel, weighing 225kg to store and release kinetic energy onto a circular granite and dolomite pattern.

Through changing the rotation speed of the flywheel, the team can initiate fluctuations in rock that are equivalent to strong seismic waves of 4 - 8 Richter scale. The reaction of the granite stone to the impact of the flywheel is similar to the findings of previous studies on earthquakes in nature. For example, the very fast acceleration at the beginning of the faults will be followed by a gradual deceleration.