Earth Quakes

[Lloyd Danforth]

The guy was here all day yesterday, but didn't mention this:

Feb 10, 8:08 AM EST


CHICAGO (AP) -- A small pre-dawn earthquake has hit northern Illinois, startling sleepy-eyed residents as far away as Iowa and Indiana, but no damage or injuries were immediately reported.

The U.S. Geological Survey reports that the 4.3-magnitude earthquake hit about 50 miles northwest of Chicago at 4 a.m. Wednesday.

USGS geophysicist Amy Vaughan says such quakes are rare in northern Illinois. She says the agency received reports from Wisconsin, Iowa and Indiana about feeling the ground shake.

Sheriff's dispatchers near the epicenter in Kane County say they've been flooded with calls from startled residents. But spokesman Lt. Pat Gengler says no injuries or damage have been reported.

Residents reported being tossed out of bed and finding books and tools scattered across the floor.

[Lloyd Danforth]

I didn't see him yesterday or, I might have given a 'heads up' about this:


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Feb 13, 5:31 PM EST

Magnitude 4.1 quake rattles Southern Calif.

REDLANDS, Calif. (AP) -- A magnitude 4.1 earthquake rattled San Bernardino County but there are no reports of damage or injury.

The U.S. Geological Survey says the quake struck at 1:39 p.m. Saturday about three miles south of Redlands. It was followed by two aftershocks within eight minutes, a magnitude 1.5 and a 1.4.

Sheriff's dispatchers say no damage or injuries have been reported.

USGS data showed that the quake was likely felt as weak shaking as far west as Chino and Pomona, and south to Temecula.

Earlier Saturday a magnitude 3.4 earthquake shook a desert area about 170 miles to the south in San Diego County.

[Raineyrocks]

The Arctic Edge exercise starts at the end of April and runs through the first week of May.

http://www.ktuu.com/Global/story.asp?S=11943888


Military to conduct simulated earthquake drill

Associated Press - February 6, 2010 7:14 AM ET

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - The military is getting ready to simulate how it would respond to a big earthquake in Alaska.

Lt. Gen. Dana Atkins, commander of Alaska's forces, says it will be the first time the Arctic Edge training exercise will bring together federal, state and local agencies to simulate a catastrophic earthquake.

The Arctic Edge exercise starts at the end of April and runs through the first week of May.

Information from: KTUU-TV, http://www.ktuu.com

[Pat K]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100227/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_chile_earthquake

SANTIAGO, Chile – A massive 8.8-magnitude earthquake capable of tremendous damage struck central Chile early Saturday, shaking the capital for a minute and a half and setting off a tsunami. Buildings collapsed and phone lines and electricity were down, making the extent of the damage difficult to determine.

The quake hit 200 miles (325 kilometers) southwest of the capital, Santiago, at a depth of 22 miles (35 kilometers) at 3:34 a.m. (0634 GMT; 1:34 a.m. EST), the U.S. Geological Survey reported.

[KBCraig]

Earthquakes in the last 7 days:

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsus/Quakes/quakes_all.php

[Ogre]

8.8 -- that's a really BIG one there.

[Pat McCotter]

NASA: Earthquake in Chile shifted Earth's axis
Graham Land in Science & Technology, 4 Mar 2010

Last Saturday's deadly earthquake in Chile may have slightly shortened the day and affected the position of the Earth's axis, according to NASA scientists.

The quake measured 8.8. on the Richter scale and is estimated to have shifted the Earth's axis by 2.7 milliarcseconds (8 cm or 3 in) and shortened the length of the day by 1.26 microseconds (millionths of a second) according to an article from Bloomberg. So much land was moved during the earthquake that it may have significantly changed the Earth's distribution of mass enough to affect such changes.

Previous earthquakes have had a similar effect, according to Richard Gross, a geophysicist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California:

• The magnitude 9.1 Sumatran in 2004 that generated an Indian Ocean tsunami shortened the day by 6.8 microseconds and shifted the axis by about 2.3 milliarcseconds, Gross said.
  
      –Bloomberg

The length of the day shortens due to something called the 'Ice Skater Effect', in which balance influences speed of rotation, like when in ice skater pulls her arms in to speed up during a spin.

From a similar CNN report:

• On the other hand, the length of a day also can increase. For example, if the Three Gorges reservoir in China were filled, it would hold 10 trillion gallons (40 cubic kilometers) of water. The shift of mass would lengthen days by 0.06 microsecond, scientists said.

Such consequences of the quake vis-à-vis the Earth's axis are interesting, but insignificant in terms of what we experience and of course do not detract from the human cost of the disaster.

[Pat McCotter]

Hmmm...

Large Hadron Collider in multi-magnet quench hiccup
1st March 2010 10:12 GMT

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), mightiest particle-masher ever assembled by the human race, briefly circulated its first hadron beams of 2010 at the weekend. However the vast machine has now been shut down again to remedy further technical snags.

Following last week's unfortunate multi-magnet quench incident, which saw large sections of the LHC's 27km forcefield conduit blink offline just as boffins were about to start powering particles around it, a new redline was painted on the dials in the control room. It had been hoped that beams would fire up on Friday, but in the event there was no success until the early hours of Sunday morning.

Even as the world's media noted that beams were back up, however, a "cryo intervention" was declared and beaming ceased. As this report is written, the LHC's subterranean tunnel circuit is cleared for people to enter (nobody is allowed down there when beams are up - access doors have retina-scan locks, and "it has to be a live eyeball", according to our control-room sources).

The latest estimates say that the rectification and recovery to supercold operating temperatures is expected to take until 5 or 6 o'clock this evening Swiss time.

It looks as though it may be a while before the Collider team can get the insanely complex machine back up to the record-breaking collision intensities seen late last year - and then onward to the planned 7 Tera-electron-Volt matter-mangling expected later this year. The LHC was designed to be capable of firing two even more outrageous 7 TeV beams into each other for an ultimate collision energy of 14 TeV, but following previous superfluid explosion disasters engineers now consider that a major refit will be required before such power levels are safe.

[Lloyd Danforth]

http://www.google.com/search?q=earthquakes+today&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

[KBCraig]

The Large Hadron Collider

Yanno, that's just one typo away from a dirty joke.

[Jim Johnson]

Get your mind out of the gutter, Craig.  This is a serious thread.  No one wants to hear about your giant hard on colliders.  A huge space bird is about to bust out of the earth's crust and destroy humanity. 

[Tom Sawyer]

OMF'nG the giant space bird!!! Rainey what should we do? aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!

[Jim Johnson]

It won't do any good to hide under Rainey's skirt.

Governments have known about "The Bird" for thousands of years.  But it wasn't until the 1800's that a plan was devised to try and save the earth.

[Pat K]

Here you can see the giant space bird!

[Raineyrocks]

Get your mind out of the gutter, Craig.  This is a serious thread.  No one wants to hear about your giant hard on colliders.  A huge space bird is about to bust out of the earth's crust and destroy humanity.

I was just trying to figure out how the name could be perverted, thanks Jim!