... "Between 1980 and about 2010 there were one to two earthquakes per year in the entire state. Between 2010 and 2015 that rate of seismicity changed to up to 15 small earthquakes per year," says Peter Hennings, a veteran of the petroleum industry and now a co-principal investigator at the Center for Integrated Seismicity Research (CISR), an earthquake research center managed by the bureau.
The number of earthquakes continues to rise, with 28 earthquakes recorded in Texas in 2016.
"Everybody wants to know what is going on. What has changed?
Oil and gas have been important parts of Texas history for over a century, and connections have been proposed between earthquakes and drilling since the 1920s. But, says Tinker, "Just because we're doing something here and an earthquake happens nearby at the same time doesn't mean that caused that necessarily; but it could have. If human activity is causing the earthquakes, we need to figure out how to stop that."
The last time the Juan de Fuca oceanic plate jolted under the North American plate, unleashing a 9.0 earthquake, was in 1700. With the event scheduled to happen once every 500 years or so, we are due for another any day now. Although it's not clear what will happen when this mega quake does hit, researchers at the University of Washington recently presented 50 possible scenarios of how the event might unfold.
Earthquakes are typically measured using the Richter scale, named after the geologist who invented it in the 1930s. The scale is numbered from 0-10, although no magnitude 10 earthquake has ever been observed, making a 9.0 one of the most powerful quakes in recorded history. The predicted earthquake, dubbed the “Really Big One,” will take place where the Juan de Fuca and North American plates meet along Cascadia subduction zone, just north of the San Andreas fault line. The earthquake would affect those living in coastal Washington, Oregon, British Columbia and Northern California, and a 2015 New Yorker article predicted the quake and its subsequent tsunami could affect 7 million people.
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
A 7.3-magnitude earthquake has shaken the northern border region between Iran and Iraq, killing at least 348 people and injuring thousands more. One Iranian aid agency said 70,000 people needed shelter after the quake, one of the largest this year. The majority of those who died were in Iran's western Kermanshah province. Nearly 5,660 were said to be injured. Seven people died in Iraq, where people fled into the streets in the capital, Baghdad. "I was sitting with my kids having dinner and suddenly the building was just dancing in the air," a Baghdad mother-of-three, Majida Ameer, told Reuters news agency. "I thought at first that it was a huge bomb. But then I heard everyone around me screaming: 'Earthquake!'" The world's deadliest earthquakes Latest images of aftermath In the latest updates from Iran: State news agency Irna quoted an emergency official as saying 5,346 people
An intense earthquake centered in the Gulf of Alaska has prompted tsunami warnings and watches for the Alaskan, Canadian and U.S. West Coasts, as well as the Hawaiian Islands, just after midnight Tuesday.
The magnitude 7.9 quake struck at 1:32 a.m. PST about 175 miles southeast of Kodiak, Alaska, or about 350 miles south of Anchorage.
Tsunami warnings have been posted from Alaska's Aleutian Islands to the British Columbia coast, including Vancouver Island's outer west, central and northeast coasts, southeast Alaska's inner and outer coasts.
Tsunami warnings mean a tsunami with significant inundation is possible or already occurring in these locations.
Toll from Indonesia quake-tsunami tops 1,234 as desperation mounts among survivors
PASANGKAYU, Indonesia — The earthquake shook their home so violently that Iffa Elia’s mother and younger sister fell to the floor and had to crawl out the door to relative safety. Fearful of everything from aftershocks to looting, they knew they had to get out.
But when they arrived at the airport in Palu, one of the two worst-hit cities, they found total chaos. Hundreds of people were pressed against a fence surrounding the runway, screaming to authorities to get them on a plane out of the city. Desperate families tried to hoist children over the metal fence, which eventually gave way.
“They were shouting ‘women only, women only,’ ” 24-year-old Elia, from the Palu neighborhood of Birobuli Utara, told The Washington Post. Her mother, unwilling to leave her father, decided to stay in the battered city along with her younger sister — and so Elia had to go it alone.
She gave her name to an Air Force official standing amid the crowd, waving her identity card at him. After several hours, she was called, and she stood in line for what she believed was her chance to get out — but two Air Force officials got into a heated argument, she said, and dispersed the line.
“It was just messed up again, and we had to start all over again,” she said.
Three C-130 military transport planes came and went. After seven hours of waiting, Elia finally found a spot on a commercial plane that was being used to deliver supplies, and left to Jakarta — among the lucky few who did.
She is among the many here who believe the government has failed on a multitude of levels: by providing little warning of the impending disasters, particularly the tsunami, then being too slow and disorganized in mobilizing aid and, crucially, failing to keep order afterward.
More than 1,230 people have been confirmed dead in twin disasters, a 7.5-magnitude earthquake and tsunami, in Palu in the Donggala region and the surrounding settlements on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. Over 61,000 have fled their destroyed homes in 100 neighborhoods and are growing more desperate — setting up makeshift tents, eating fruit from the few trees that still stand and scouring for water — as aid remains scarce.
People are desperate to leave, swarming onto the runway at Palu’s airport on Monday, making it difficult for aircraft to land and hugging the wheels when they try to take off.
Widespread fuel shortages have been reported by multiple aid agencies operating across the region as far south as Mamuju, still a nine-hour drive from Palu. Cars there were parked at gas stations, left stationary by dry pumps, and others were seen brimming with belongings heading away from the disaster area.
Between Donggala and Palu, the “road is lined with people begging for food and water,” said Fatwa Fadillah, program manager for disaster risk reduction at Catholic Relief Services. “They are thirsty and afraid, because they don’t know when they will get reliable access to water.”
On the road to Palu, humanitarian organizations were stopping to rearrange their vehicles in an effort to keep water and fuel hidden, amid reports of robberies on the road. Fuel trucks have been traveling to the region only after nightfall to prevent being seen and mobbed, and are guarded by police convoys.
The death toll is likely to rise even further, as victims who have been buried by mud in a nightmarish process called liquefaction — where sand and silt take on the characteristics of liquid — have not fully been tallied.
“We don’t know how many people have been buried in the mud because of liquefaction and land sinking,” said Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, spokesman for Indonesia’s National Disaster Mitigation Agency.
At two housing complexes that were completely destroyed by the muddy, loose soil, residents said electrical poles appeared to be “walking” and housing “moving from one place to another.”
Rescue workers have just begun to reach the region of Donggala, where some 300,000 people live. The area is still hard to access because of badly damaged roads, and rescuers doing damage assessments say everything on the coast has been damaged and destroyed. On Tuesday, local television broadcasts showed angry residents screaming at Indonesia’s president, Joko Widodo, better known as Jokowi, to ask for help.
Nugroho, the disaster agency spokesman, admitted that “not all the needs” of those displaced are well served.
“Everything is still limited — logistics, fuel, tents, mattresses, blankets, clean water, clothing and so on,” he said.
Questions are swirling, particularly among the people of Sulawesi, about their government’s disaster preparedness and ability to respond quickly to crises. Indonesia is in the Ring of Fire, an arc of fault lines and volcanoes in the Pacific Ocean. The country has been rocked by earthquakes in recent months, including a major one and strong aftershocks on the island of Lombok that killed almost 600 in August.
On Sunday, the Indonesian president authorized foreign aid, but none had arrived by Tuesday to the region. Over 18 countries have pledged aid and support, including the United States. Teams from the U.S. Agency for International Development are in Sulawesi conducting assessments, and the United States has authorized $100,000 in initial disaster aid through USAID.
President Trump, speaking to reporters at a news conference Monday at the Rose Garden, said that he had dispatched first responders and the military to help in the aftermath, which he said was “a really bad, bad situation.”
Indonesia’s coordinating minister for security affairs, Gen. Wiranto, said the government has asked, in particular, for additional C-130 aircraft that can transport evacuees and aid. Two countries, Singapore and the United States, are readying their military aircraft, he said.
Witnesses say that more military convoys have been moving into Palu to deal with looters and stabilize the security situation.
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
A 7.0 magnitude earthquake just struck outside of Anchorage, Alaska.
dohboi wrote:Earthquake rattles Alaska
https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/alaska ... index.htmlA 7.0 magnitude earthquake just struck outside of Anchorage, Alaska.
Tsunami warning in effect in Alaska following 7.0 quake and aftershocks
https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/30/us/alask ... index.html
ROCKMAN wrote:It occurs to me that many think earth quakes cause tsunamis. They are confusing cause and effect. What causes SOME earth quakes can also cause a tsunamis. And no: not all tsunamis have to be caused by the same event that produces an earth quake.
So what are the two most common causes of a tsunami?
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Return to Environment, Weather & Climate
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 15 guests