Russian, Chinese Scientists Team Up to Unravel the Mysteries of Earthquakes

The scientists of Russia's Far Eastern Federal University (FEFU) and Far-Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) will cooperate with Chinese colleagues on forecasting earthquakes and mitigating their consequences, the FEFU said Monday.

VLADIVOSTOK (Sputnik) — The group of researchers will be headed by Nikolai Shestakov, the head of geodesy and land-utilization department of the FEFU Engineering school. The researchers received a grant for the study of modern tectonics and rheological features of the lithosphere in the North-East Asia as a result of the joint competition organized by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC).

"The issues related to the modern geodynamic and tectonic activity in the south of the region [Far East], the existence of the Amur and Okhotomorsk microplates, the parameters of their rotation, and even the location of the borders of major Eurasian and North American lithospheric plates, are still under-explored. Similar situation is with the northeastern regions of China, bordering the southeastern areas of the Russian Far East," Shestakov said.

He stressed that joint use of the data and resources obtained by Russian and Chinese scientists would lead to achieving "fundamentally new results."

According to Shestakov, the scientists are exploring the earthquake that took place in Japan on March 11, 2011, followed by a tsunami that hit the Fukushima nuclear power plant, adding that the obtained information would allow to clarify and significantly update the data on the seismic hazard of the southern regions of Russian Far East and the Primorsky Territory, in particular.