The May 12 Sichuan earthquake in China was unexpectedly large. Analysis of the area, however, now shows that topographic characteristics of the highly mountainous area identified the mountain range as active and could have pointed to the earthquake hazard.

Using remarkably sensitive new instruments, seismologists have detected minute geological changes that preceded small earthquakes along California's famed San Andreas Fault by as much as 10 hours.

Although measurement techniques surrounding earthquakes have improved enormously over the last few decades, it has remained very difficult to measure changes in the crust that could enable earthquake prediction.

A new analysis of the setting for last month's devastating earthquake in China by a team of geoscientists at MIT shows that the quake resulted from faults with little seismic activity, and that similar events in that area occur only once in every 2,000 to 10,000 years, on average.

New research that integrates seismic recordings with Global Positioning System (GPS) measurements indicates that a 7,000-square-mile region of the Whillians Ice Stream in West Antarctica moves more than two feet twice every day in an earthquake-like pattern equivalent to a Magnitude 7 temblor.

A seismologist at Washington University in St. Louis and colleagues at Pennsylvania State University and Newcastle University in the United Kingdom have found seismic signals from a giant river of ice in Antarctica that makes California's earthquake problem seem trivial.

Thousands of toads appeared on the streets in one Chinese town days before it hit. Zoo animals started acting strangely hours before the worst earthquake in China’s history. Could these signs have been used to alert people something was about to happen?

The island of Sumatra, Indonesia, has shaken many times with powerful earthquakes since the one that wrought the infamous 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

Until 1992, when California’s magnitude-7.3 Landers earthquake set off small jolts as far away as Yellowstone National Park, scientists did not believe large earthquakes sparked smaller tremors at distant locations. Now, a definitive study shows large earthquakes routinely trigger smaller jolts worldwide, including on the opposite side of the planet and in areas not prone to quakes.

Only last summer research published by earth scientists in the international journal Tectonics concluded that geological faults in the Sichuan Basin, China “are sufficiently long to sustain a strong ground-shaking earthquake, making them potentially serious sources of regional seismic hazard."

The first batch of 100 elite soldiers were parachuted on Wednesday afternoon into an area near the epicenter of Monday's earthquake in southwest China.

An earthquake of magnitude of 6.7 hit the Tokyo area of Japan cutting off power to more than 2,000 homes and causing light injuries, Japan's news agencies and AFP report.