Earth Quakes

[Lloyd Danforth]

Is it just me or have there been a lot of reportable Earthquakes lately?  There has just been one in the Indian Ocean.

http://www.iris.edu/dms/seismon.htm

[doobie]

There have always been a lot of earthquakes....  of course IMO the more oil we drill out the more earthquakes we have...

[Pat McCotter]

This is just Gaia trying to shake us off.

[Pat McCotter]

Quakes and Typhoons: What's Up with Mother Nature?
Posted August 11, 2009
By Andrea Thompson, LiveScience

It may seem like Mother Nature is pulling out all the weapons in her arsenal, after a spate of earthquakes and cyclones struck Asia in recent days, but the fact that these events coincided is just that — a coincidence.

Typhoon Morakot was the first to strike, slamming into Taiwan Sunday and causing disastrous mudslides with its torrential rains. Scores are feared to have died in the maelstrom.

While the Taiwanese were lashed by the storm's wind and rain, a 7.1-magnitude earthquake rumbled off the Japan coast, also on Sunday. On Tuesday, Japan was struck again by a magnitude 6.5 earthquake that triggered a small tsunami and caused buildings to sway in Tokyo, some 90 miles away, according to news reports. While the Earth trembled, the country was also seeing rain from Typhoon Etau.

Minutes before, another earthquake had ruptured in the Indian Ocean on Tuesday, north of India's Andaman Islands. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) put the magnitude of that temblor at 7.6.

The events have little to nothing to do with each other, except that they are happening in an earthquake-prone region of the world that is in the middle of its tropical cyclone season.

Stormy links

The western Pacific typhoon season lasts from about mid-May to November, about the same time as the Atlantic hurricane season (June 1 to Nov. 30). (Hurricanes and typhoons are the same phenomenon, collectively known as tropical cyclones. They just carry different names, because they occur over different ocean basins.)

While the Pacific typhoon season has been busy, no tropical storms or hurricanes have yet sprouted in the Atlantic. This is because of events a world away —the El Nino that has developed in the eastern Pacific. El Nino puts energy high into the atmosphere that tends to promote cyclone activity in the Pacific. That energy moves across the Americas, over the Atlantic, and tends to stifle hurricane formation in the Atlantic.

"That has worldwide effects," said Dennis Feltgen, a spokesman for the National Hurricane Center in Miami, referring to El Nino.

The Atlantic hurricane activity does seem to be picking up though, with the development of the second tropical depression of the season (tropical depressions have less intense winds than tropical storms, which in turn are less intense than hurricanes). Tropical Depression 2 seems to be on track to develop into Tropical Storm Ana, which will be the first named Atlantic storm of the season.

"We're seeing more activity now than we've seen all season," Feltgen told LiveScience.

The busiest months of the Atlantic season are typically August and September.

Shaky links

While the cyclone and earthquake activity in Asia aren't linked, there was initially some thought that the earthquake activity might have been.

The earthquake in Japan on Tuesday happened a mere 11 minutes and 29 seconds after the Andaman Islands quake in the India Ocean.

"They were very close in time," said Paul Caruso, a geophysicist with the USGS.

Scientists looked to see if the seismic waves from the Andaman quake might have triggered the Japan quake, but saw that the waves from the first quake arrived too early to have caused the second one, about 8 minutes and 40 seconds after the Andaman quake.

"We don't think they're linked at all," Caruso told LiveScience.

Neither of the Japanese quakes was linked either, with the Sunday temblor happening very deep in the ground, and the Tuesday earthquake occurring farther north and at a more shallow depth, Caruso said.

While aftershocks have shaken the regions hit by earthquakes, whether or not more strong quakes will occur can't be predicted.

[Pat K]

I am sorry I will stop doing jumping jacks.

My Bad.

[Lloyd Danforth]

I had considered that you were touring Asia and falling off of those tiny beds but it seemed unlikely

[leetninja]

so far we have had two earth quakes and 3 floods and a typhoon hit Japan.  I am here for about another 8 days.  Should be interesting.

I have never been through any of those but now I have experienced them all within a week. 

I think we need more "natural disaster" because natural selection seems to have taken a little while off and needs to do some catching up.  lol.

[Raineyrocks]

I think there is an awful lot too.

Remember this site I posted  http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/index2.php ?    I've been watching it and it's crazy!

[Lloyd Danforth]

Two in Colorado a day apart.

[Raineyrocks]

Here's another one Lloyd!

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/10/16/indonesia.quake/index.html
   
Strong quake rattles Indonesian capital

updated 1 hour, 50 minutes ago
   
JAKARTA, Indonesia -- A strong earthquake rattled the Indonesian island of Java on Friday, sending panicked people into the streets of the capital city, Jakarta.

The U.S. Geological Survey put the quake's magnitude at 6.1 -- lowering it from an earlier magnitude of 6.5.

The epicenter was located in the Sunda Strait -- the narrow body of water between Java and Sumatra islands, about 115 miles (185 km) southwest of Jakarta, according to the USGS.

It struck shortly before 5 p.m. local time (6 a.m. ET).

The quake prompted a mass evacuation in downtown Jakarta. There was no sign of any initial damage, CNN producer Andy Saputra said.

It is the latest in the series of quakes to have rattled Indonesia, including strong quakes on September 30 and October 1 near the island of Sumatra.

More than 1,000 people are believed to have died after the quake destroyed buildings in the city of Padang, the capital of West Sumatra.

Friday's quake did not last long, and was not nearly as powerful as the 7.0-magnitude quake that shook Jakarta on September 2, causing high-rise buildings to sway, according to Reuben Carder, a reporter with Dow Jones.

[Lloyd Danforth]

6.5 quake shakes buildings on California coast

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- A powerful offshore earthquake rattled communities in far northern California, cutting power to thousands of customers, causing minor damage to homes and businesses and forcing many people to seek treatment for cuts and bruises from falling debris.

The 6.5 magnitude temblor hit at about 4:27 p.m. PST Saturday and was centered in the Pacific about 22 miles west of Ferndale, but was felt as far south as Capitola in central California and as far north as central Oregon, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

In Eureka, about 240 miles north of San Francisco, residents of an apartment building were evacuated, and an office building and two other commercial structures were declared unsafe for occupancy, according to Humboldt County spokesman Phil Smith-Hanes.

"Our initial reports were that, though this was a pretty decent quake, we survived it well," Smith-Hanes said, adding that damage assessents would continue on Sunday across the county.

More than a dozen aftershocks, some with magnitudes as powerful as 4.5, rumbled for several hours after the initial quake, which had a depth of nearly 10 miles.

Authorities said no major injuries have been reported. But several people received minor cuts and scrapes from broken glass at the Bayshore Mall in Eureka, and an elderly person fell and broke a hip, authorities said.

"We're mostly getting reports of bumps, bruises and hits on the head," said Laurie Watson Stone, a spokeswoman for St. Joseph Hospital, a 146-bed hospital in Eureka. "The emergency room is busy, but we haven't heard of any major injuries."

Amanda Nichols, a dispatcher for Eureka Police Department, said she received a report that an infant was struck in the head with some flying debris at the mall.

Pacific Gas & Electric Co. spokesman J.D. Guidi said power outages were widespread across most of Humboldt County, affecting about 25,000 customers.

Nearly 10,000 remained without power some five hours after the quake, and some could remain without power through Sunday, said PG&E spokeswoman Janna Morris.

No damage was done to the company's former nuclear power plant outside Eureka, Morris said.

Several traffic lights fell and numerous residents reported water, gas and sewer leaks, Humboldt County Office of Emergency Services spokeswoman Jo Wattle said.

"People have chimneys down, and we're hearing about minor property damage and lots of glassware broken," Wattle said. "People are really shaken up. It was shaking pretty good, then it had a big jolt to it at the end."

Police in Ferndale, several miles south of Eureka, said the earthquake caused stucco to fall off City Hall and broke shop windows, strewing the historic downtown streets with glass shards.

"I thought a tire had blown off my truck because it was so hard to keep control of the vehicle," Officer Lindsey Frank said. "Power lines were swaying, and I could see people in the fields trying to keep their balance."

Eureka city spokesman Gary Bird said because the earthquake hit shortly before dark, only the city's old town received thorough surveys for damage. Authorities there found fallen bricks and parapets that had fallen off old structures, causing damage to adjacent buildings, he said.

"There are some frayed nerves, but I think we've come through this pretty well for the magnitude of earthquake we've had," Bird said.

Televisions tumbled and objects were knocked off walls in Arcata, a small town that's home to Humboldt State University, one resident said.

"The whole town is kind of freaked out right now," said Judd Starks, the kitchen manager at a bar and restaurant known as The Alibi. "All the power is out, people are out walking around."

It struck in an area where earthquakes ranging from 7.0 to 7.3 have struck periodically since the 1800s, causing damage and injuries.

California is one of the world's most seismically active regions. More than 300 faults crisscross the state, which sits atop two of Earth's major tectonic plates, the Pacific and North American plates. About 10,000 quakes each year rattle Southern California alone, although most of them are too small to be felt.

The damage created by an earthquake depends greatly on where it hits. A 7.1 quake - much stronger than Saturday's 6.5 temblor - hit the Mojave Desert in 1999 but caused only a few injuries and no deaths.

By contrast the 1994 Northridge earthquake under Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley was magnitude 6.7. It killed 72 people, injured more than 9,000 and caused $25 billion in damage in the metropolitan area. And the magnitude-7.1 quake in October 1989 struck just before the third game of the World Series at Candlestick Park. The quake, centered in the Santa Cruz Mountains on the San Andreas fault, caused nearly $3 billion in damage.

Dan Bowermaster of San Francisco was with relatives in Eureka when Saturday's quake hit, moving the refrigerator in his cousins' home about 3 feet. He said he had been in several moderate and large quakes throughout California but had never felt anything as strong as this one.

"It was extremely unsettling, it was shaking in kind of a circular way," he said.

Sandra Hall, owner of Antiques and Goodies in Eureka, said furniture fell over, nearly all her lamps broke and the handful of customers in her store got a big scare. She said it was the most dramatic quake in the 30 years the store has been open.

"We'll be having a sale on broken china for those who like to do mosaics," she said.

---

[Raineyrocks]

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/01/12/haiti.earthquake/index.html

7.0 earthquake hits Haiti
January 12, 2010 5:48 p.m. EST

A major earthquake struck just off the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince on Tuesday, sparking a tsunami watch for parts of the Caribbean, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

There was no immediate report of damage or injuries from the quake. However, The Associated Press reported that a hospital had collapsed.

The quake had a reported magnitude of 7.0 and was centered about 10 miles (16 km) off the coast and about 6 miles (10 km) underground, according to the USGS.

A tsunami watch was posted for Haiti and parts of Cuba, the Dominican Republic and the Bahamas, but historical data suggests a destructive, widespread tsunami was not a threat, the USGS reported.

[Raineyrocks]

I thought I read about an earthquake in North Carolina today too but now I can't find anything about it.  It was a 6.5 , I think.

[Lloyd Danforth]

There was one in Haiti. That sounds something like North Carolina.

[Russell Kanning]

well you could go to caltecch or somewhhere and check out their historic data to see if this is unusual