A newly discovered 100-mile long seismic gap underneath the Chinese city of Tianjin has lay unruptured for 8,400 years, and the area is due for an earthquake of catastrophic proportions, according to a study published in Geology magazine.

The report says that Tianjian and its surrounding area is due - and possibly overdue - for a 7.5 magnitude earthquake. The city is situated only 60 miles southeast of the capital Beijing, and has an estimated population of 11 million, which is about the size of New York City and Chicago combined.

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Tianjin is located atop the Tangshan-Hejian-Cixian fault, which has been the site of 15 devastating earthquakes in the past 1,000 years.

Experts say that an earthquake hitting this region would cause mass fatalities and infrastructural damage that would rival or surpass China's Great Tangshan earthquake of 1976. This natural disaster is considered the deadliest earthquake of the 20^th century, killing at least a quarter of a million people, with some reports suggesting a death toll as high as 655,000.

The study used combined historical records and results of early paleo-earthquake studies to show that a 160 km (100-mile) seismic gap has existed along the northeast-striking right-slip Tangshan-Hejian-Cixian fault in China since the Neolithic Era.

The research was led by An Yin, a professor at the University of California-Los Angeles' (UCLA) Department of Earth and Space Sciences, and conducted in conjunction with the Chinese Earthquake Administration (CEA).

A "surprising finding" was the existence of a 160-km (100 mile) seismic gap centered at Tianjin, which "has not been ruptured by any major earthquake for more than 8,400 years."

Tianjin lies on top of the Tangshan-Hejian-Cixian fault that has been the site of 15 devastating earthquakes in the past 1,000 years

Yin and his team found that current data indicate that the recurrence interval of major earthquakes along the Tangshan-Hejian-Cixian fault is between 6,700 to 10,800 years. This implies that an earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 7.5 can either strike any day now - or within the net 2,000 to 3,000 years - along the seismic gap if it is ruptured by a single event.

To assess future seismic hazards along the fault, scientists from UCLA and the CEA have reconstructed, for the first time, a spatial pattern of major earthquakes along the fault. The reconstruction is based on detailed analysis of the available instrumental records in the past few decades; historical records in the past 4,000 years; and pre-historical records tracing back nearly 11,000 years.

TagsTianjin Due for Major Earthquake Study Shows, seismic gap, Tangshan-Hejian-Cixian fault, An Yin, UCLA, Chinese Earthquake Administration