Tectonic behind the Myanmar earthquake

A 7.7 magnitude earthquake, Friday afternoon in the local time in the country’s second largest city in the country near Mandalay’a hit Myanmar. Earthquake, Myanmar and also A skyscraper has been overturned Under construction in Thailand, Bangkok, more than 600 miles away. After the earthquake, Myanmar military junta declared a state of emergency in six regions and confirmed that more than 100 people were killed and hundreds of people were injured, while the Thai authorities reported that at least seven deaths and points were missing. A report He estimates that the death fee from the United States Geological Study (USGS) will probably exceed 1,000 and even exceed 10,000, given the earthquake central base near the populated areas.

Myanmar is located in the southern region of Eurasia, from the Mediterranean to the East to the East and the East Indians, the Alpid generation is located on one of the most tectonic active regions in the world along a land oil of 9,300 miles. Alpide generation is one of the three major earthquakes regions And it is responsible for about 15 percent of the world’s largest earthquakes, only the second of the fire ring in the Pacific. The tectonic activity of the belt gave rise to most of the world’s most impressive mountain ranges, including the Alps, Atlas Mountains and Himalayas.

Today’s earthquake today is similar to the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

Zhigang Peng, a seismologist at the Georgia Institute in Atlanta, says that Zhigang Peng, who studied earthquakes along the Alpid in Türkiye, said that Myanmar has been followed with great earthquakes in the past with 6.7 aftershocks after about 11 minutes. Since 1900, at least six earthquakes measuring at least 7 magnitude within 150 miles of Friday earthquakes were recorded. According to USGS.

We talked with Peng about the seismic history of the region, the causes of today’s earth and what scientists know.

Myanmar is one of the most seismic active areas in the world. Could you tell me about the history of earthquakes in this region?

Myanmar is close to the southeast end of the alpid belt and the long story is short, this is a field well -known part The belt where earthquakes are quite common. Most of the belt was seismicly active or in the past. For example, the Alps are part of the system, but although most of this area is in the distant past, it is currently not active in tectonic. [Recent research suggests that parts of the southern Alps may still be active.]

Of course, earthquakes of such largeness are rare, but they have been. If I remember correctly, it was in 1839 when an incident took place in this region and it was an earthquake of 8.0. However, in 2011, there have been many “smaller” earthquakes in the region, 6.8 magnitude.

What is directing all this tectonic activity? Is it the same as in other earthquake -prone places, such as the fever ring in the Pacific Ocean, the most seismic and volcanic active region in the world?

There are many different things in the region. Most of the ones are the movement of African, Arab and Indian tectonic plates to the north and collision with the Eurasian tectonic plate. More locally, in Myanmar, the Indian plate collides with the Sunda plate that seized the equator in the eastern hemisphere. This is a sinking area where one plate enters the other. However, you get what we call a transformation or strike-loss error close to the edge of this border-a block moves to the north, another block moves to the south. San Andreas in the United States is similar to the error and in fact, this earthquake is size and size for the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

The fire ring in the Pacific is also a sinking region, but it is different in terms of being much more volcanically active, and most of the earthquakes are linked to volcanism in the region.

This is a classic example of an earthquake that occurs in a place where we know it will happen.

How do you define this special earthquake?

Today’s effectiveness is actually very simple. This earthquake was not a part of the mountain-making process, but it occurred during a strike-loss error called Sagaing error in Myanmar.

As far as I can see, the activity is a very typical continental strike-loss activity. In a single incident near Mandalay, an error section of about 200 kilometers was broken and mostly spread to the south. It was quite shallow, probably about 10 kilometers or deep, and it took about a minute to reveal itself because it was very large and produced very important jolts. I saw too many infrastructure damage, building and bridge. [USGS has estimated that the quake ran along a fault section that lies 6 miles (10 kilometers) deep, 124 miles long and 12 miles wide.]

Was there any ink that this region was caused by an event of this size?

Earthquake scientists have examined this region for a while and I will call it an example of an earthquake that has occurred in a place where we know it would happen. Of course, we don’t always know when – when – when you always have a $ 1 million question, but you can do mathematics to find out if it is in an expected time we call the recurrence range.

Considering what happened today as a repetition of what happened in 1839, you can see that it is almost 200 years. And we know that the fifa ratio – how much stress accumulates throughout the error – usually ranks about 2 centimeters a year. If you are 2 centimeters per year and about 200 years, you get about 4 meters accumulated stress. A shift of this size is sufficient to produce a size of 7 or higher and we observed it.

What are the secondary dangers of such an earthquake?

Typically, three secondary danger associated with large earthquakes are landslides, fever and tsunamis. We can rule out the tsunams because it occurred on land and occurred in a relatively flat area, so I didn’t expect to see big landslides. Probably if they don’t, there will be small, localized fires with growth potential.

But most of the things I look at are aftershocks. Earthquakes like this will almost absolutely follow aftershocks and some can be large. We should expect to see other major events in the next few weeks to months. Most of them will be smaller than today’s earthquake, but there is always an event of a similar size or the worst scenario.

Lead Image: A graphic showing the density of the earthquake. Credit: USGS

• Amanda heidt

  Published March 28, 2025

  Amanda Heidt is an award -winning Free Science Journalist and Editor throughout Life Sciences, from ecology and environment to artificial intelligence and qualified cells and molecular biography.

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