THE Earthquake Thread (merged)

[Lore]

Lets get serious, what does the Farmer’s Almanac have to say?

[mos6507]

"You kept me up all night waiting for the Great Pumpkin for nothing."

[vision-master]

42 quake swarm in Gulf of Aden over 24 hour period - November 14-15, 2010



Just sayen ~

[mos6507]

[vision-master]

Are you eating an egg?

[mos6507]

Are you eating an egg?

It's called a yawn. Gee, I really have to be literal with you, v-m.

[Ferretlover]

Looks like a swarm of earthquakes in Iceland near previous eruption. Anyone have any reports on it?http://en.vedur.is/earthquakes-and-volcanism/earthquakes/myrdalsjokull/

[steam_cannon]

Whatever happens happens... But the Katla webcam is still functioning, so I think it's another day of wine and roses (or beer and pizza).

Icelandic volcano cam website
English volcano cam website
Lunitic Fringe Volcano Discussion Lol

[dohboi]

Hasn't Katla always blown within a year of Eyjafallajokull? I've been wondering when this would get into the news again.
But this site, link, doesn't show any quakes in Iceland over the last week.

[Ferretlover]

A new report released today in the Kremlin prepared for Prime Minister Putin by the Institute of Physics of the Earth, in Moscow, is warning that the America’s are in danger of suffering a mega-quake of catastrophic proportions during the next fortnight (14 days) with a specific emphasis being placed on the United States, Mexico, Central America and South American west coast regions along with the New Madrid Fault Zone region.

This report further warns that catastrophic earthquakes in Asia and the sub-continent are, also, “more than likely to occur” with the 7.3 magnitude quake in Japan today being “one of at least 4 of this intensity” to occur during this same time period.

Raising the concerns of a mega-quake occurring, this report says, are the increasing subtle electromagnetic signals that are being detected in the Earth’s upper atmosphere over many regions of the World, with the most intense being over the US Western coastal and Midwest regions.

Important to note are that Russian and British scientists are at the forefront of predicting earthquakes based on these subtle electromagnetic signals and have joined in an effort to put satellites in space to detect more of them.

More ominously in this report are Russian scientists confirming the independent analysis of New Zealand mathematician and long-range weather forecaster, Ken Ring, who predicted the deadly Christchurch quake and this week issued another warning of a quake to hit on or about March 20th.

more at
http://www.realnewsreporter.com/?p=843

[vision-master]

Don't forget the CME that's gonna hit us within two years that will knock out our ele grid for Months. MORE DOOMER PORN!

[Ferretlover]

Take a look at what experts are increasingly calling the so-called ring of fire that is encircling the entire Pacific Ocean. You remember Chile's massive earthquake about a year ago. Then we had that big one in New Zealand just last month. Then of course Japan.

If this clockwise trend continues, my next guest says North America looks to be on tap next. Don't laugh. Geologist Jim Berkland is worried. When he worries, you should worry too. Jim accurately predicted, get this, the 1989 so-called World Series earthquake four days before it shook the San Francisco Bay Area.

(snip) JIM BERKLAND, GEOLOGIST: The month of October, March, and April are the three most devastating earthquakes in terms of damage in the San Francisco Bay Area in history. And we are having on the 19th of this month not only the full moon, but within an hour the closest approach of the moon to the earth until the year 2016. The next day is the equinoctial tides. So you're bringing together three of the maximum tide raising forces. We know about the ocean tides. But there is also an Earth tide. And there is a tide in the ground water. All of these help to release sudden, built up strain, and cause earthquakes.

(snip) Well, if it was, one in the northwest, in the Cascadia Trench, like we had in 1700, that would be a nine magnitude quake. I'm not predicting that. But I'm saying we just had a massive fish kill. Maybe a million fish died in Redondo Beach. They had a massive fish sweep in Mexico. We just had a bunch of whales come in close to San Diego.

(snip) Changes -- changes in the magnetic field that off then precede larger earthquakes. Most animals have the mineral magnetite in their bodies, including people. But it causes homing pigeons to enable them to get home. Just before big quakes, they often can't get home. There is the delay factor. So we look for those kinds of things.

Just before the World Series quake there was very unusual beaching of rare whales in the Ocean Beach, in San Francisco. Just after that, a equally rare pigmy sperm whale washed up at Santa Cruz, within about five miles of the epicenter of the World Series quake. That kind of beaching had never occurred before nor since. So we're looking for strange fish coming into from deepwater to the shallow water, wild animals coming into cities.

I used to just scoff at these kinds of things, because I was a mainstream geologist until I found out that earthquakes are fitting a pattern. The big earthquake in the Indian Ocean followed massive beachings of whales in Taiwan -- not Taiwan, but New Zealand and Australia and Tasmania. And then within couple of days, they had a 8.3 in south of New Zealand, and then came the 9.1 in the Indian Ocean, with the big tsunami, on the very day of the fool moon.
http://www.foxbusiness.com/on-air/cavuto/transcript/major-earthquake-north-america-imminent

Well that's creepy.. to hear a geologist sounding like an internet kook, talking about the earth's magnetic field and beaching whales and fish deaths (he didn't mention the bird deaths) as indicative of an imminent quake.

But now that I read this, I recall there were beachings a few days before the NZ quake. And weird mass fish deaths have been in the news.

So if this clockwise pattern continues, first Chile then NZ then Japan.. US west coast appears to be next.

[Timo]

A country song a few decades back, sung by some guy who'd just lost his girlfriend (as so many country and blues songs go) proclaimed that he'd be waiting for her "on the coast of Colorado when California's gone."

Dammit! That song just became an ear worm, and i can't get rid of it, and i hate country music!

[vision-master]

Even kenny chesney?

[Pablo2079]

There have been some odd fish deaths near Vancouver Island over the past month and a half or so. There are some theories, but they've been happening on the West and East coast of the island.... they haven't seen this before.

http://www.bclocalnews.com/vancouver_island_central/nanaimonewsbulletin/news/114661719.html#

[PrestonSturges]

So if this clockwise pattern continues, first Chile then NZ then Japan.. US west coast appears to be next.

And the US has had volcanic eruption in Alaska and Hawaii, although those are not rare.

How's Yellowstone doing?

[rockdoc123]

some clarifications

the geologist in question did work for the USGS when they predicted the World Series earthquake, but their prediction had nothing whatsoever to do with EM fields. It was all based on a series of smaller earthquakes that they saw as precursors to a larger one. Note that the USGS has been wrong more times than right in terms of predicting earthquakes.

there is a description here http://www.ess.washington.edu/SEIS/PNSN/INFO_GENERAL/eq_prediction.html
about earthquake prediction in general and specifically about the World Series earthquake.

Earthquake prediction is a popular pastime for psychics and pseudo-scientists, and extravagant claims of past success are common. Predictions claimed as "successes" may rely on a restatement of well-understood long-term geologic earthquake hazards, or be so broad and vague that they are fulfilled by typical background seismic activity. Neither tidal forces nor unusual animal behavior have been useful for predicting earthquakes. If an unscientific prediction is made, scientists can not state that the predicted earthquake will not occur, because an event could possibly occur by chance on the predicted date, though there is no reason to think that the predicted date is more likely than any other day. Scientific earthquake predictions should state where, when, how big, and how probable the predicted event is, and why the prediction is made. The National Earthquake Prediction Evaluation Council reviews such predictions, but no generally useful method of predicting earthquakes has yet been found.
It may never be possible to predict the exact time when a damaging earthquake will occur, because when enough strain has built up, a fault may become inherently unstable, and any small background earthquake may or may not continue rupturing and turn into a large earthquake. While it may eventually be possible to accurately diagnose the strain state of faults, the precise timing of large events may continue to elude us. In the Pacific Northwest, earthquake hazards are well known and future earthquake damage can be greatly reduced by identifying and improving or removing our most vulnerable and dangerous structures.

with regards to EM even though it is still the subject of research there are a number of scientists who think it is a waste of time simply because the number of factors that influence whether a particular fault will move a certain amount at any given time is largely a stochastic problem and not a determinsitic one. It lends itself to statements about the probability of a major earthquake occuring in a certain time period but nothing more.

[gnm]

Hey Rocdoc, I was reading up on historical major earthquakes in Japan and read that there was a pattern that typically went (Major quake/tsunami NE), (Major quake/tsunami SE), followed by eruptions of Mt Fuji in many cases. Something about the nature of this fault system tending to do that. Any truth to that? If so then they may be in for more misery over the next couple years.

-G

[yeahbut]

But now that I read this, I recall there were beachings a few days before the NZ quake.

Hi Six, to give that a little perspective, those were pilot whales- mass strandings of pilot whales are not at all unusual in NZ and happen without accompanying earthquakes on a fairly regular basis...I have always found their name particularly ironic

There is quite a bit of discussion in NZ at the moment re the moon and it's influence, of lack of it, on seismic activity. A guy who has a fairly high profile weather forecasting system based on lunar cycles has made predictions of another large earthquake for Christchurch on the 20th which has scared a lot of people. A geology student who took time out from his phd to look into it could find no statistical correlation.

The most interesting take on recent seismic activity around the world that I have heard was an interview on the telly here the other day with a seismologist who has been studying earthquake 'clusters'. He believes that there is enough evidence to support the idea that very large earthquakes can trigger other quakes globally, and he thinks that while the current level of quakes still falls within the regular parameters, it is at the high end. He thinks this may be due to the truly massive 9.3 Indian ocean earthquake having brought other quakes 'forward in time'- that is to say, they were faults that were already loading up, but without the nudge from that massive quake, might not have triggered for another few years.

[Timo]

Someone please verify this for me. This came from my wife, who is a scientist, so my gut (and her fist) tells me to trust her, but this just seems absolutely incredible. She told me that the moon raises the tectonic plates a full 50 feet as it passes over each one. The reason that nobody notices is that this increase is so slow that it doesn't even measuer on a richter scale. This is hard for me to believe, and i know that by even asking for verification, i'm risking the trust i've placed in my wife for all of eternity. However, there was no mention of seismic activity in our wedding vows, so this might be a convenient exception to the trust rule, but still.......... Any geologists out there want to ruin 20 years of wedded bliss for me?