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| Mount Everest - the world's highest peak. |
The 7.9 magnitude earthquake - Nepal's deadliest in more than 80 years relocated the capital city of Kathmandu by about three meters, but the height of Mount Everest remains unchanged, reported Zee News.
The death toll has increased to 4,300 and the experts worldwide conclude that the city of Kathmandu might have moved south by three meters.
"It`s likely that the earthquake occurred on the Himalayan Thrust fault, a plate boundary that separates the northern moving Indian sub-continent from Eurasia," said Sandy Steacy. head of the physical sciences department at the University of Adelaide.
"The fault dips about 10 degrees to the north-northeast. The relative movement across the fault zone was on the order of three metres at its greatest, just north of Kathmandu," she added, echoing similar views to University of Cambridge tectonic expert James Jackson.
Mark Allen from the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Durham said: "It would be simplistic to say that Kathmandu was relocated by three metres.
"There may have been three metres of slip on the fault at the earthquake nucleation point at 15 kilometres depth. But this dies out in all directions, including upwards to the surface."
Mount Everest stands still
As per seismographic data, Stacy points out that the fault plane was not directly linked to that on which the world's highest peak stands. The report further states that the fault occurred in between two tectonic plates - one pushing India towards the plate bearing Europe and Asia - the process that created the Himalayas.
"The main slip was west of Everest, the mountain was not directly above the fault plane," said Steacy.
"In addition, the dip of the fault is very shallow so three metres in a horizontal direction doesn`t mean much vertically."
Allen concurred, adding that "there may be an effect if an avalanche has dislodged some of the snow cover on the summit".
We will know soon if any detectable height change has occurred, when those working on satellite-based `synthetic aperture radar` look at the difference in snapshots of the ground surface position before and after the event," Ian Main, a professor of seismology and rock physics at the University of Edinburgh said.
More quakes to come
Allen explained that there will be more aftershocks as a result of the stress exerted on other adjacent faults.
"The slip on the April 25th earthquake will have increased the stress on other segments of the same fault, or of adjacent faults, such that they are more likely to rupture themselves," said Allen.
"There may be earthquakes for months in the region, which likely relate to the main event."
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