ANN ARBOR, Mich. (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- It's likely an earthquake is hitting somewhere in the world right now. There are 500,000 detectable earthquakes in the world each year, and don't think you're not at risk. Between 1975 and 1995, all states except four experienced an earthquake. They're not easy to predict. When, where and how strong they'll be are all mysteries. Now, scientists are digging deep to find the answer.
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It rattles buildings, swallows cars and if you live through one, you'll never forget it
"All of a sudden, everything starts to shake and you stop and immediately tense up," earthquake survivor Lucy Jones told Ivanhoe.
What causes earthquakes? A rock may hold the answer. At the world's first underground earthquake observatory, SAFOD -- the San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth -- near Parkfield, Calif., samples of rock are taken from deep inside the fault where the Pacific and North American plates meet.
"It's the first time we're actually studying the fault within the earth at the depth that the earthquakes are occurring," geologist Mark Zobach told Ivanhoe.
Ben van der Pluijm, Ph.D., a geologist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Mich., believes the rock will help explain why some quakes are more violent than others.
"The area is locked, and then suddenly it releases," Dr. van der Pluijm told Ivanhoe. "That's the earthquake. What these samples seem to tell us -- the fault doesn't lock as much."
That because a fine coating, or nano-coating of clay greases the fault.
"When these little pieces are next to each other, they can't move," Dr. van der Pluijm said. "It's called friction, but when you put something in between, you can slide very easily, just like soap in your hands."
By learning more about the nano-coatings, van der Pluijm hopes to uncover the answer to why earthquakes happen
"This is not something that can prevent earthquakes, but it's important for us to know what processes are taking place, and then we can understand the earthquake cycle," Dr. van der Pluijm said.
What they're digging out a mile and a half below the earth's surface today could help save millions of lives tomorrow.
SAFOD is a major research component of EarthScope, which is a $197 million federal program to investigate the forces that shape the North American continent. They hope to find out what causes earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
The American Geophysical Union, the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology, and the Materials Research Society contributed to the information contained in the TV portion of this report.
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