Prophetic Intelligence Briefings
Recently Discovered Faults Under New York City · March 03, 2010
August 21, 2008, Live Science reported that New York City is vulnerable to a major earthquake. “The New York City area is at ‘substantially greater’ risk of earthquakes than previously thought, scientists said Thursday. Damage could range from minor to major, with a rare but potentially powerful event killing people and costing billions of dollars in damage.”
The Newark/New York area involves three major faults; the Ramapo, the Flemington and Hopewell faults. (Modified from NJ Geological Survey, 1994).
“A pattern of subtle but active faults is known to exist in the region,” reported Live Science, “and now new faults have been found. The scientists say that among other things, the Indian Point nuclear power plants, 24 miles north of the city, sit astride the previously unidentified intersection of two active seismic zones.”
The geology of the Eastern United States with lots of hard rock makes any tremors travel a lot farther and with greater intensity from the epicenter.
“‘The evidence charts unseen but potentially powerful structures whose layout and dynamics are only now coming clearer,’ the scientists said. And even though eastern quakes are infrequent, the risk is high, because of the overwhelming concentration of people and infrastructure, said lead researcher Lynn R. Sykes of Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.”
“‘Today, with so many more buildings and people, a magnitude 5 centered below the city would be extremely attention-getting,’ said John Armbruster, also from the observatory. ‘We’d see billions in damage, with some brick buildings falling. People would probably be killed.’”
Most faults in the Eastern United States are not visible from the surface, so such a quake could strike from somewhere that no one knows about.
But the scientists said that the fault lengths and stresses suggest magnitude-6 quakes, or even 7 — which would be 10 and 100 times bigger than magnitude 5 — are ‘quite possible,’” causing damage estimated to be $39-$197 billion, should a large earthquake hit metro New York.
“The new study revealed a significant previously unknown active seismic zone running at least 25 miles from Stamford, Conn., to the Hudson Valley town of Peekskill, N.Y., where it passes less than a mile north of the Indian Point nuclear power plant. Several small quakes are clustered along its length. It is ‘probably capable of producing at least a magnitude-6 quake,’ the researchers said in a statement.”
“I am bidden to declare the message that cities full of transgression, and sinful in the extreme, will be destroyed by earthquakes, by fire, by flood. All the world will be warned that there is a God who will display His authority as God. His unseen agencies will cause destruction, devastation, and death… Calamities will come—calamities most awful, most unexpected; and these destructions will follow one after another.” Evangelism, page 27.
“The end is near and every city is to be turned upside down every way. There will be confusion in every city. Everything that can be shaken is to be shaken and we do not know what will come next. The judgments will be according to the wickedness of the people and the light of truth that they have had.” Last Day Events, page 111.
“O that God’s people had a sense of the impending destruction of thousands of cities, now almost given to idolatry… The time is near when large cities will be swept away, and all should be warned of these coming judgments.” Evangelism, page 29.
