Earthquakes have been studied by many scientists, frustrated that they're unpreventable. However, we can learn more about them in order to help cope with the destruction. Scientists from the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences and from Liverpool University took a closer look at the formation of earthquakes, focusing on the earthquake in Chile in 2010 that had a magnitude of 8.8. They discovered that "water trapped in the boundary between both plates has a dominant influence on the earthquake rupture process", because "the stress build-up before an earthquake and the magnitude of subsequent seismic energy release are substantially controlled by the mechanical coupling between both plates". The scientists explored an array of scientific fields, form geodesy to seismology to petrology to look at earthquakes from all different angles and come up with their theory that it's the water trapped between tectonic plates that causes such severe destruction form earthquakes.
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