image: Mapped fault surface ruptures (black lines) mark discrete breaks in the crust around which the ground shifted and warped. Asymmetric coloring of ridgelines indicates horizontal motion of the ground surface, and gradients in elevation change represent tilting and warping of the surface. The observed deformation matches an elastic model of the response to fault slip. This image relates to a paper that appeared in the Feb. 10, 2012, issue of Science, published by AAAS. The paper, by Michael E. Oskin at the University of California, Davis in Davis, Calif., and colleagues was titled, “Near-Field Deformation from the El Mayor–Cucapah Earthquake Revealed by Differential LIDAR.” view more
Credit: [Image © <i>Science</i>/AAAS]