字神帝國英語天地

 今日主題：Underground Eruptions Could Cause Quakes Months Later  地震的延遲效應

 洪欣老師推薦：托福聽力最好的課外教材：60-Second Science
 康康精選托福會考的主題，堅持每天精聽一定會進步的哦!!

 建議方法：
1. 先聽兩三遍 (不看文稿)
2. 再一句一句聽寫 (每句都要聽寫數遍，直到寫出85%以上的字)
3. 最後check文稿，看哪聽不出來，單字沒背過，還是發音不熟。
4. 堅持天天聽，就能每天進步哦。

 MP3音檔 (按右鍵可下載聽)：喜歡的同學，幫忙推或按讚哦~~
http://online1.tingclass.net/voas…/2016/20160404sa_earth.mp3

 只有音檔怎夠，聽不懂地方，不用怕，康康幫你準備好中英文稿了：

 中英文稿：
2002 was a tough year for the people who live along the shores of Lake Kivu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It started off with a bang, when the Nyiragongo volcano erupted in January. And it tailed off with a shudder, when a magnitude 6.2 earthquake struck the region in October. Both events devastated local communities—and their close timing struck some scientists as suspicious.
2002年對於居住在剛果共和國伍湖沿岸的人來說，是艱難的一年。在1月份，隨著嘭的一聲，尼拉貢戈火山爆發了。十月份的時候，該地區發生了6.2級的地震，之後，震感逐漸變小。這兩起地震事件使當地的社區遭到破壞，這兩起事件時間很近，引起科學家們的懷疑。

“We were wondering if there was a link—so, a causality—between those two major geological events.”
我們在懷疑這兩起地震之間的有關連——因果關係。

Christelle Wauthier, a geologist at Pennsylvania State University.
克里斯泰勒`沃蒂耶是賓夕法尼亞州大學的地質學家。

From studying radar images of the ground taken before and after the January eruption, Wauthier knew that lava didn't just spew out of the volcano. It also wedged itself into cracks in the crust, forming what geologists call a dike.
沃蒂耶通過研究1月份地震前後的地面雷達圖像，發現熔岩不止噴出火山，同時，還流入地殼裂縫中，形成地質學家稱的岩脈。

“You can think of it as like a blade-shaped type of magma intrusion, moving from depth toward the surface. It's very fast, a few hours, a few days, and it can penetrate tens of kilometers of crust.”
你可以把它認為是葉片形狀的岩漿浸入，從裡向外流出。速度很快，需要數小時，數天，同時岩漿可以穿透幾十公里後的地殼。

Dikes are common in rift zones, like east Africa and Iceland, where tectonic forces are slowly ripping Earth's crust apart. And they're known to cause small earthquakes right when they happen. But Wauthier wondered if dikes might also be capable of triggering large earthquakes by pushing the ground apart and affecting nearby faults.
裂谷帶形成岩脈是很常見的現象，如在東非以及冰島地區，地震會導致地殼劇烈運動。當這種現象發生時，就會引發小型地震。但是，沃蒂耶猜想，岩脈是否也能夠通過將地表斷裂以及對附近的斷層施加影響而引發大型地震。

“You will add more stress on a weakness surface, which is a fault. And so if you add enough stress on it, you can trigger failure on the fault.”
對脆弱的地表層，即斷層施加壓力。如果施加的壓力足夠大，就會引發斷層斷裂。

Now, Wauthier and her colleagues have used a model to show that the stress changes caused by the January dike event made the October earthquake much more likely to occur. The results are in the journal Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems.
現在，沃蒂耶和同事們已經利用模型表明由於十月份的地震更容易引發1月份的地震壓力變化。該研究結果發表在《地球化學》、《地球物理學》以及《地球系統》雜誌上。

This study marks the first time scientists have linked dike formation to large, damaging earthquakes, and Wauthier is looking back through history for more examples. She says researchers will never be able to predict exactly when an earthquake might strike after a dike intrusion. But at least now, researchers and rift zone residents know they're not just in for bangs—they may also be in for shudders.
該項研究是科學家首次將壕溝的形成與大型的、破壞性的地震相聯繫。沃蒂耶正在尋找歷史上更多類似的例子。她說研究人員永遠無法預測岩脈侵入後，會在何時發生地震。但是現在，科學家們以及裂谷區的居民至少知道等待自己的不止是火山噴發的聲音——還有可能是強烈的震動。