You are currently viewing the summary.
View Full TextLog in to view the full text
AAAS login provides access to Science for AAAS members, and access to other journals in the Science family to users who have purchased individual subscriptions.
More options
Download and print this article for your personal scholarly, research, and educational use.
Buy a single issue of Science for just $15 USD.
Summary
The geological rupture responsible for the devastating magnitude-7.5 earthquake that struck Palu, Indonesia, in September 2018 ripped through Earth's crust at rare high speed, scientists report. This "supershear" behavior likely intensified the shaking in the quake, which triggered a tsunami and killed more than 2000 people. Typically, the ruptures that cause earthquakes travel at a speed slower than its damaging side-to-side waves, called shear waves. In the past 2 decades, however, seismologists have discovered a handful of high-speed ruptures on long, linear, and smooth strike-slip faults. The Palu rupture, however, occurred on a rougher strike-slip fault, with kinks in its path, raising fears that far more regions could be at risk of high-speed quakes than once thought.
