Summer 2011 - University of Massachusetts Lowell

Ourworld
MONSTER QUAKES: ARE WE AT RISK?
The magnitude 9.0 earthquake that rocked the northeastern coast of Japan on March
11 unleashed deadly tsunami waves that wiped out entire villages. What are the
chances of such a devastating earthquake happening right here in New England?
“Nobody knows for sure,” says Prof. Arnold O’Brien of the Environmental, Earth
and Atmospheric Sciences Department. “Unlike on the West Coast, earthquakes
happen so infrequently here in the Northeast that they are more difficult to predict.
Our historical records date back only to the 1600s and they are very sketchy.”
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the last time New England experienced a
series of major seismic events was in the 1700s. The region’s most powerful temblor to
date took place on Nov. 18, 1755, in the Cape Ann region east of Newbury. In Boston,
chimneys were leveled or heavily damaged,
and stone fences were knocked down. New
springs formed, and old springs dried up.
Ground cracks were reported in Scituate,
Pembroke and Lancaster, and the shaking
was felt from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to
Chesapeake Bay in Maryland.
Today there is a fault zone — called the
Clinton–Newbury Fault — that runs about
a mile south of UMass Lowell’s North Campus
close to Route 110 in Lowell, and continues
through Drum Hill and Westford,
O’Brien says. It’s an ancient “suture” that
was created during the Paleozoic era about
250 million to 450 million years ago, he
says, when an island mass collided with the
North American tectonic plate and was
dragged underneath it.
Compared to the San Andreas Fault in
western North America, which is the most
heavily studied and monitored fault on the
continent and where ground movement is
High-rise buildings in downtown
Boston are at great risk of
structural damage in the event
of a severe earthquake.
UNIVERSITY NUCLEAR ENERGY
EXPERT IN DEMAND
C A M P U S N E W S
so evident, the Clinton–Newbury Fault is not very well
investigated. However, O’Brien says there has not been
any significant seismic activity in the Clinton–Newbury
Fault and he doesn’t expect any in the foreseeable future.
That’s a good thing – because according to civil engineering
Asst. Prof. Tzu-Yang Yu, “Here in New England,
new buildings need only to meet the minimum level
of seismic resistance in their design. This is based largely
on the site’s characteristics and the seismic history of the
region.”
A severe earthquake here would create “unimaginable”
devastation, Yu says: “Buildings 10 stories or higher that
were built to the current standard would be subject to
considerable structural damage. Walls would crack and
the buildings would sink or tilt, though not necessarily
collapse.”
As reporters, elected officials and pundits scrambled to
understand what was happening at the damaged nuclearpower
plants in Japan, many of them turned to UMass
Lowell’s Gil Brown. The nuclear engineering professor
was interviewed by media outlets from across the country,
including Time magazine and the Washington Post.
“We need to demystify
the nuclear power process
and be cautious” about making
sweeping statements, says
Brown. “The situation is a
moving target – it’s the middle
of the storm – and too
soon to draw conclusions
about lessons learned.”
He points out, however,
that the Japanese plants
survived an earthquake far
Gil Brown
beyond their designed limits. The reactors shut down
power production exactly as they should, bringing the
core temperatures down dramatically. But the tsunami
waves overtopped the 20-foot seawall, damaging the
emergency generator system that would be used to
circulate cooling water over the still-hot fuel rods.
“The Japanese are doing what they can to contain
the radioactivity, using the emergency procedures that
are known and rehearsed,” says Brown. Calling the technique
“bleed and feed,” he draws the analogy of a tea
kettle on a heat source: As heat builds up, steam can be
vented off at the top, so that more water can be added.
Pointing out that every U.S. plant is likely now
checking its own design tolerances, emergency procedures
and ability to operate under blackout conditions,
Brown says, “It’s time to review and reflect, not time to
panic. Plants that were safe last week are safe this week.”
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