September 24, 2025
2 Min read
Most of an energy from an earthquake is released in the form of heat, no tremor
Up to 98% of the energy of an earthquake enters flash heating rocks, and without shaking the ground, according to new research. The finding could help produce better earthquake forecasts
The tremors produced by an earthquake can break the ground, drop the buildings and cause massive rock falls. All this destructive power is surprisingly only a fraction of the overall energy of an earthquake.
A new laboratory study in AGUED AGUED notes that the tremors represent only 1 to 8% of the energy released in an earthquake, while up to 98% of this energy dissipates in the form of heat. The friction of huge pieces of rock sliding against each other can increase the temperature of the soil to more than 1,700 degrees Celsius – enough to melt quartz and other minerals.
It is difficult to measure the amount of energy of an earthquake to shake the soil in relation to the rupture rocks compared to the flash heating, since earthquakes start deep under the surface of the earth and occur at unpredictable intervals. To understand this energy budget, Daniel Ortega-Arroyo, now a postdoctoral researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and his colleagues have created Bitty laboratory earth tremors by pressing centimeter decks of centimeters of granite powder and magnetic bite between the aluminum pistons until the penchant in powder or broken. They measured this cracking process under constraint with thermometers and piezoelectric sensors that imitate the seismographers used to measure real earthquakes.
On the support of scientific journalism
If you appreciate this article, plan to support our award -winning journalism by subscription. By buying a subscription, you help to ensure the future of striking stories about discoveries and ideas that shape our world today.
Even these earthquakes at the centimeters scale have become hot quickly. “It has mainly passed from room temperature to more than 900 degrees C in a few microseconds – so extremely, extremely fast,” explains Ortega -Arroyo.
Between 68 and 98 percent of the energy released in these laboratory earthquakes were dissipated in heat, the researchers noted. The break in the brochure increased from less than 1% of the energy to 32%, while the tremors represented 8% or less. Samples that had been more distorted before rupture experienced a little less heating, known as Ortega-Arroyo, which indicates that the history of the rocks in default could control the amount of energy that goes to heating, to the rupture of rock and to tremble in the next earthquake.
The new research is important because the energy budget of earthquakes is “a huge unknown”, explains Rachel Abercrombie, earthquake researcher at the University of Boston, who was not involved in the study but discussed experiences with the authors before the publication. “It is quite fundamental to understand earthquakes and therefore to be able to model them.” The models of earthquake computers are used for everything, the determination of the way in which local buildings to the test of the earthquake should be tried to determine when a defect will then break and the size of the earthquake that will result.
An advantage of the work is that he has used a new technique measures the alignment of magnetic minerals in the heated rock to help interpret the temperature change, explains Heather Savage, earthquake researcher at the University of California in Santa Cruz. Savage, which was not involved in the study, made analyzes in the field of the roches melted on the old flaws lines. These real world studies also use a magnetic analysis, she says, and have the same measures in the real world and in the laboratory can help evolve the results of a centimeter slice to a multiple flaw.
“How to extrapolate it to something like an earthquake on the fault of San Andreas?” Said Savage. “It’s probably a fairly big question for us to think.”
It’s time to defend science
If you enjoyed this article, I would like to ask for your support. American scientist has been a defender of science and industry for 180 years, and at the moment can be the most critical moment of this two -centuries story.
I was a American scientist The subscriber since the age of 12, and that helped shape my way of looking at the world. Let me know Educates me and always delights me, and inspires a feeling of fear for our vast and magnificent universe. I hope that does this for you too.
If you subscribe to American scientistYou help make sure that our cover is focused on significant research and discoveries; that we have the resources necessary to report the decisions that threaten laboratories in the United States; And that we support the budding scientists who work at a time when the value of science itself does not become often again.
In return, you get essential news, Captivating podcasts, brilliant infographics, Maybe not miss newsletters, videos to watch, Difficult games and the best writings and reports in the scientific world. You can even Give someone a subscription.
There has never been more time for us to get up and show why science counts. I hope you will support us in this mission.
