按：四川省地震局周荣军研究员为《Active tectonics of the Beichuan and Pengguan faults at the eastern margin of the Tibetan Plateau》一文的作者之一，该文针对西藏高原东边缘北川和彭灌断层频繁的地质活动进行了研究，做了地震地质灾害风险方面的分析，并于2007年7月中旬刊登在美国的《地壳》（Tectonics）杂志上。为此，我们电话连线了周荣军研究员，目前周先生正在四川地震现场进行紧张的科考和地震评估工作，我们的专访是采用短信和电话结合的方式进行的。
地震信息网：请介绍一下您日常的工作和研究方向。
周荣军：我主要从事地震地质、工程地震和活动构造方面的研究和工作。
地震信息网：请您谈一下这篇文章产生的过程和背景。
周荣军：这是一项中美合作科研项目，从2001年起，历时约5年，并得到了国家自然科学基金和美国自然科学基金的资助。
地震信息网：请您介绍这篇文章的一些主要观点。
周荣军：本文主要阐明了青藏高原东缘的北川断层(Beichuan fault)和彭灌断层（Pengguan fault）为晚更新世-全新世活动断层，表现为逆冲-右旋运动性质，且走滑位移量要大于垂直位移量，指出：断层的长度足以产生强地面震动的地震，成为区域地震危险性的潜在震源。
地震信息网：请您谈谈这篇文章所阐述的观点和地震预报的关系。
周荣军：本文并没有直接对该地区进行地震预报，即没有说明未来某一时间段内发生多大震级的地震，仅仅阐明北川断层和彭灌断层具有发生强震的构造背景，这和大家关心的时、空、强三要素的地震预报有很大的差别。地震是瞬间发生的事情，而孕育地震的过程却是几十年、上百年，甚至更长。目前，科学界还没有对地震活动的周期性、地震活动前兆特性有科学权威说法，地震预报是全世界的科学难题。这篇文章提供的观点也仅仅是地质环境的背景信息，我们还无法依据本论文的观点准确的预测或预报汶川地震。
地震信息网：谈谈您怎么看这次汶川地震。
周荣军：5.12汶川大地震让四川、甘肃、陕西等地的人们蒙受了巨大的损失。我这些天都在灾区科考和评估，所见到的地震破坏也的确让我们震惊和心痛。根据我们的初步考察，汶川地震确实是由北川断层的逆冲-右旋错动导致的，彭灌断层的某些段落可能也同时发生了地表位错。我想这次地震一定会为我们留下很多宝贵的经验、教训和科学资料，我们会更加努力的工作，降低地震等地质灾害给人类造成的损失。
国家地理英文原文：
Study Warned of China Quake Risk Nearly a Year Ago
Kevin Holden Platt in Beijing
for National Geographic News
May 16, 2008
Just ten months before a deadly earthquake struck Sichuan Province's Beichuan county on May 12, a scientific study warned that the Chinese region was ripe for a major quake.
After examining satellite images and conducting on-the-ground inspections of deep, active faults in Sichuan Province for more than a decade, scientists issued a warning.
"The faults are sufficiently long to sustain a strong ground-shaking earthquake, making them potentially serious sources of regional seismic hazard," the Chinese, European, and U.S. geoscientists wrote in the mid-July 2007 edition of the journal Tectonics.
They concluded that clashing tectonic forces were growing in Beichuan, ready to burst in an explosion of seismic energy.
With precision and what now seems like eerie foresight, the researchers charted the active faults on multicolored maps of Beichuan, which turned out to be the epicenter of the recent earthquake.
"As far as I know, this is the only investigation of these active faults," said study co-author Michael Ellis of the Center for Earthquake Research and Information at the University of Memphis in Tennessee.
(Related: "China Quake Delivered Seismic One-Two Punch" [May 15, 2008].)
The magnitude 7.9 quake that struck on May 12 almost entirely leveled parts of Sichuan Province. Chinese officials today estimated that the death toll would reach 50,000 and that nearly five million people are homeless.
(See photos of the earthquake's destruction.)
"Locked in a Journal"
There is little reason to believe Chinese officials were aware of the July 2007 report, or that it would have made much difference if they had been.
"We had certainly identified the potential of these active faults," Ellis said. "But that information was effectively locked in an academic journal."
Ellis hopes that replacing the collapsed buildings with earthquake-proof structures could prevent future tragedies.
"I've been to these little towns [before the quake]," Ellis said. "Most of the houses are built of unreinforced masonry, and you can see little brick factories all around this area.
"It is more expensive to build earthquake-proof structures," he added. And the vast majority of people in Sichuan Province are anything but rich.
The Science Behind the Quake
Earthquake activity is nothing new in Beichuan.
"We have shown evidence for surface-rupturing earthquakes along the Beichuan fault since 12,000-13,000 years ago," Ellis and colleagues reported last summer.
Speaking with National Geographic News, Ellis said, "Ultimately, the [2008] earthquake is related to the continuing and inexorable collision of India with Asia, which is occurring at a rate of about 20 to 22 milimeters [just under an inch] per year."
This collision started more than 50 million years ago, when the tectonic plate beneath India crashed into the Eurasian plate. (Watch how the plates slammed into each other.)
"The Himalayas and all of Tibet was created by this collision," Ellis added.
As the Indian plate continues its slow-motion crash into Asia—sometimes in jerks marked by earthquakes—it is pushing the entire Tibetan Plateau northward.
"This earthquake was the Tibetan mountains moving east over the plains of Chengdu [the capital of Sichuan Province]," said Roger Bilham, a geoscientist at the University of Colorado who was not involved in the July 2007 study.
Not Just Sichuan's Problem
Study co-author Ellis said that, as the Tibetan Plateau moves northward, "the interior parts of Tibet are collapsing, rather like a soufflé taken out of the oven into cold air."
Faults along the southern, Himalayan edge of Tibet present hazards as great as those underlying the Sichuan temblor, Ellis said.
"Risk associated with the loss of collateral and lives is very high along the Himalaya, because so many people live there or immediately downstream," Ellis added.
"The risk is similarly high in Sichuan [to the east], because of the population and, like India and Nepal, the relatively poor building standards," he said.
And as India continues to pound into Tibet, "it is still creating new fault lines"—and new dangers.
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