NY Nuke Plant Sits Atop Potential Earhquake Zone

According to NASA's Earth Observatory, New York City is in greater danger of earthquake damage than was previously believed.

NASA points that, alarmingly, the Indian Point nuclear facility just north of the city, sits on top of the meeting of two prevously unknown but active fault zones, according to a study by Columbia University scientists.

"We need to step backward from the simple old model, where you worry about one large, obvious fault, like they do in California," said coauthor Leonardo Seeber. "The problem here comes from many subtle faults. We now see there is earthquake activity on them. Each one is small, but when you add them up, they are probably more dangerous than we thought. We need to take a very close look." Seeber says that because the faults are mostly invisible at the surface and move infrequently, a big quake could easily hit one not yet identified. "The probability is not zero, and the damage could be great," he said. "It could be like something out of a Greek myth."