Risk for massive earthquake in California increases as scientists find dangerous helium coming from fault zone

The likelihood of an eight or larger magnitude is seven percent.

Researchers recently discovered helium leaking from a giant fault in the Earth's crust near Los Angeles, as well as discovering an increase in chance for California to have an 8.0 magnitude earthquake.

MUNTINLUPA, PHILIPPINES (Catholic Online) - They did not expect the recent findings, but it gave new insight on the Newport-Inglewood Fault Zone in the Los Angeles basin. It showed that the fault zone is "far deeper than previously thought" and may result in a "more devastating" earthquake.

Jim Boles, a geologist from UC Santa Barbara, found evidence of helium leakage from the Earth's mantle along the Newport-Inglewood Fault Zone, which stretches to up to 30-miles.

Boles claimed that his findings reveal the fault zone to actually be deeper than what was previously accepted by scientists. Reports explain that he gathered samples of casing gas from two dozen oil wells in LA's Westside to Newport Beach in Orange County. The samples led him to discover that more than one-third of the sites showed evidence of high levels of helium-3 (3He).

3HE is considered primordial and is also an indication of the Big Bang, with its "terrestrial source" to be in the mantle.

He published his findings in the Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems (G-Cubed) journals, which is an electronics periodical of the American Geophysical Union and the Geochemical Society.

"This paper shows that the mantle is leaking more at the Newport-Inglewood fault zone than at the San Andreas Fault, which is a new discovery. We show that the Newport-Inglewood fault is not only deep-seated but also directly or indirectly connected with the mantle," Jim Boles reportedly said, explaining his findings were a "lot more important than previously thought, but time will tell what the true importance of all this is."

Besides Jim Boles, other researchers have analyzed earthquake activity in California using the latest data of active geological faults. They wanted to determine the probability of experiencing a magnitude 8, or larger, earthquake, in the next 30 years.

The estimates show the likelihood for California to experience a strong quake is about 7.0 percent, up from the previous 4.7 percent, which means that the chance was increased.

If an earthquake with at least a magnitude 8 occurs in California, the Newport-Inglewood Fault Zone might create massive devastation.

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