MEASURING DEEP ROCK STRESS: This has nothing to do with fretting about music, but it could help improve earthquake prediction. The work on the “anelastic strain recovery method” for analyzing rock stress is being done at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“Rock stress — the amount of pressure experienced by underground layers of rock — can only be measured indirectly because you can’t see the forces that cause it,” Hiroki Sone, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering and geological engineering at Madison, said in a news release. “But instruments for estimating rock stress are difficult to use at great depths, where the temperature and pressure increase tremendously.”

More:

The latest proof-of-concept tests show the anelastic strain recovery method can be used to measure rock stress at extreme depths — as deep as 4.3 miles.

The UPI article is short but informative. It links to this in-depth (so to speak) scientific report.