Credit: B. BOR/REUTERS

Nature Geosci. doi:10.1038/ngeo636 (2009)

Geologists have pinned down the geometry of the fault that ruptured in China's Sichuan province in May 2008 (pictured), killing at least 70,000 people.

The researchers used data from the Global Positioning System to track how the land surface moved along the rupture, together with satellite radar data on rock deformation in three dimensions. The fault changes its orientation and type of motion along its course, concludes the team led by Zheng-Kang Shen of the China Earthquake Administration in Beijing. Maximum slip — where destruction was worst — occurred at the intersections of different fault segments.