Tokyo earthquake reports - Japan prelim magnitude 7.3 - off Fukushima (Tsunami Imminent)

a reply to: auroraaus its not really doom and gloom? think you,ll find most posters are more intrested in is this the start of something big? frightened? i,ll never understand why anyones frightened of anything,we,r all going to check out at some point,embrace it,stop worring.

a reply to: intrptr

I don't know why you think I'm your enemy just because I told you it was raining?

a reply to: intrptr

Youre scared of radiation? Did you know bananas are radioactive.

Breaking news on Japan Earthquake

www.breakingnews.com...

updated 10 minutes ago:

Editor's note: AP has reported, citing Japan Meteorological Agency, that the magnitude 6.9 earthquake off the Fukushima Prefecture coast Tuesday was an aftershock of the magnitude 9.1 earthquake that occurred in 2011 and triggered a deadly tsunami with waves up to 133 feet. The agency warned that in the next few days, another large quake could hit, urging residents to remain cautious for about a week, according to AP. The magnitude 6.9 earthquake Tuesday was the strongest since the 2011 quake. - Imana

originally posted by: sad_eyed_lady
www.breakingnews.com...

updated 10 minutes ago:

Editor's note: AP has reported, citing Japan Meteorological Agency, that the magnitude 6.9 earthquake off the Fukushima Prefecture coast Tuesday was an aftershock of the magnitude 9.1 earthquake that occurred in 2011 and triggered a deadly tsunami with waves up to 133 feet. The agency warned that in the next few days, another large quake could hit, urging residents to remain cautious for about a week, according to AP. The magnitude 6.9 earthquake Tuesday was the strongest since the 2011 quake. - Imana

Huh??

It does end up at AP, but a 5 year old aftershock?

Tsunamis and earth quakes are so 2000s.. you know what will be cool? A super volcano! Like yellow stone. That will keep us entertained for while.

I have trouble believing those reactors can go a week without their cooling system functioning.
Especially since Tepco said so.

originally posted by: Aeshma
a reply to: intrptr

Youre scared of radiation? Did you know bananas are radioactive.

There has never been a "banana proliferation" agreement though, or a multi-tipped banana warhead put onto an icbm....I'm think the type and concentration of radiation might be just a tad different between monkey food and the ground at Fukushima...

a reply to: reldra
Yes, it's quite reasonable for there to be an aftershock in that magnitude range and location after Japan's mag 9.1 Mw quake of March 2011. With very large events, aftershocks can continue for decades or even centuries, as in the case of the huge New Madrid region series of quakes of 1811-12, where the small quakes in that area today are still considered as aftershocks, according to Omori's Law of aftershock rates and size.

Simply put, that big quake was a heck of a jolt. It was the 4th largest quake ever recorded by instruments. So, things need a long while to settle down!

But from a technical standpoint, yesterday's event off Fukushima fits the criteria of a defined aftershock:
-- its epicenter was within about 1 fault length range of the original main shock's focal point
-- it was within the same faulting zone/system
-- it was not greater than about 1 - 1.2 Mw magnitude less than the main shock (ie, it was less than approx a mag 8)
-- it apparently follows the kind of rate of decay for aftershocks seissmologists expect from Omori's Law

I won't go into details about Omori's Law here as it gets technical enough to glaze the eyes of most people, but there is plenty of info about it online. In basic terms it's a formula that describes rates of aftershock decay.

originally posted by: JustMike
a reply to: reldra
With very large events, aftershocks can continue for decades or even centuries, as in the case of the huge New Madrid region series of quakes of 1811-12, where the small quakes in that area today are still considered as aftershocks, according to Omori's Law of aftershock rates and size.

absolutely!

Here's a pretty good article in regards to aftershocks and more.

www.nature.com...

a reply to: TDawg61
Well, as usual TEPCO is playing word games. Fact is, the Fukushima Dai-ichi reactors are already toast as they had meltdowns within hours to days of the March 11, 2011 mag 9.1 Mw quake and its tsunamis. So, seeing as they are not even functioning and their cores are already wrecked, they don't behave the way "healthy" reactors would.

Basically, they are "cooling" an already melted mess of core material, and probably not very efficiently. If the cooling fails, then the melted down cores will just heat up and melt down more and release more deadly material into the environment. Would that take a week? I doubt anyone really knows. I also doubt that TEPCO would break any speed records in releasing the info if it did.

As for the Spent Fuel Pools (SFPs), they are a worry because spent fuel rods are so highly radioactive and hence much more dangerous than new fuel rods. They need to be kept cool for years while their radiation level slowly decays to a level that allows them to be removed and then stored in special containers. If the SFP water drops too low and the rods get exposed to the air and rapidly overheat, they can begin to burn and release radioactive materials into the surroundings.

What's most disturbing about this is that yesterday's quake was "only" a low-range mag 7. USGS says it was a 6.9. JMA said 7.3, then 7.4. But even if we call it a 7.1 Mw (which is still a lot less than a 7.4), it released 1,000 times less energy than the 9.1 Mw in March 2011 and the shaking it produced was about 100 times less as well.

If they are having cooling problems and power outages with a quake in the low 7 range, I hate to think what might have happened if it had been a magnitude bigger: ie, ~10 times the violence of the shaking and cca 32 times the energy released.

Consider the following:
A ~mag 8.0 Mw is still theoretically possible as an aftershock of the 2011 event. Pretty unlikely, I must emphasize, but it could happen. If they get a bigger one than that, then it'd be too big to view as an aftershock of the 2011 event and would probably be considered a new "main shock" event, with its own aftershock sequence to follow.

Then, there is still plenty of subduction fault line left along that coast that hasn't let go in a good while. Another quake in the mag 8 Mw range is expected to occur sooner or later further south: the so-called Tōkai quake. Scientists are expecting it because the Tōkai region has had huge quakes at pretty regular intervals, of about 100 to 150 years. And the last big one there was in 1854. They expect the next one to be at least a mag 8.0 Mw.

The Hamaoka Nuclear Power station is built by the sea, right on the subduction zone that would be the source of the next Tōkai quake. I believe it's currently still shut down as a precaution while they build a bigger protective anti-tsunami wall.

Then there's the Nankai Trough region, a bit further south but still off the coast of Honshu, which they estimate could produce a magnitude 9 event and huge tsunamis.

To be blunt, Japan is probably one of the worst places in the world to have nuclear power plants, especially by the sea and even more so with the levels of incompetence and obfuscation demonstrated by eg TEPCO. We've already seen why, with Fukushima in 2011. But seeing as that country is definitely going to get more huge quakes and tsunamis sooner or later (especially along that coast), it boggles the mind that they are even considering keeping these power plants at all.

originally posted by: Ranger351
There has never been a "banana proliferation" agreement though, or a multi-tipped banana warhead put onto an icbm.

Quote of the week right here folks, and it's only Tuesday.


I'm resisting the urge to make jokes about a banana-tipped warhead.

originally posted by: Aeshma
a reply to: intrptr

Did you know bananas are radioactive.

You get more radiation exposure from a chest Xray or airline flight.

a reply to: JustMike

This is where the nuclear power industry fails, waste disposal.

It's also somewhat counterintuitive to think that spent nuclear fuel is more radioactively dangerous than a new ready to go core. This is due to the changes which take place and the daughter isotopes which are created in the fission process.

I've seen it said that if a person were riding a motorcycle at 60 mph and rode by a spent fuel bundle they would be dead before they passed by the bundle.

This is the stuff that's dangerous for such lengths of time, scientists have to figure out how to tell descendants so far removed from us that they have to take language drift into account. They even have to account for the possibility that civilization could completely collapse and rise again with no knowledge of our current languages and not be able to understand our writings.

"The objective is to minimize the possibility of future human intrusion at the site; therefore, a disposal strategy needs to be developed that takes cognizance of the soundest knowledge currently available in the field of general semiotics...[which] is relevant to the problems of human interference and message exchanges involving long periods of time, over which spoken and written languages are sure to decay to the point of incomprehensibility, making it necessary to utilize a perspective that goes well beyond linguistics..."

linky

How crazy is that?

What would a far future anthropologist make of our pictograms of danger?

This earthquake was, as you mentioned, much less severe than the one which caused the disaster in the first place and yet the cooling seems to have temporarily stopped. That does not bode well should the theorized 8.0 mag aftershock take place.

Not to mention the other junctions you mentioned and which are also known to be able to generate equivalently damaging shocks.

Again?? Poor people.

originally posted by: JustMike
a reply to: TDawg61
Well, as usual TEPCO is playing word games. Fact is, the Fukushima Dai-ichi reactors are already toast as they had meltdowns within hours to days of the March 11, 2011 mag 9.1 Mw quake and its tsunamis. So, seeing as they are not even functioning and their cores are already wrecked, they don't behave the way "healthy" reactors would.

Basically, they are "cooling" an already melted mess of core material, and probably not very efficiently. If the cooling fails, then the melted down cores will just heat up and melt down more and release more deadly material into the environment. Would that take a week? I doubt anyone really knows. I also doubt that TEPCO would break any speed records in releasing the info if it did.

As for the Spent Fuel Pools (SFPs), they are a worry because spent fuel rods are so highly radioactive and hence much more dangerous than new fuel rods. They need to be kept cool for years while their radiation level slowly decays to a level that allows them to be removed and then stored in special containers. If the SFP water drops too low and the rods get exposed to the air and rapidly overheat, they can begin to burn and release radioactive materials into the surroundings.

What's most disturbing about this is that yesterday's quake was "only" a low-range mag 7. USGS says it was a 6.9. JMA said 7.3, then 7.4. But even if we call it a 7.1 Mw (which is still a lot less than a 7.4), it released 1,000 times less energy than the 9.1 Mw in March 2011 and the shaking it produced was about 100 times less as well.

If they are having cooling problems and power outages with a quake in the low 7 range, I hate to think what might have happened if it had been a magnitude bigger: ie, ~10 times the violence of the shaking and cca 32 times the energy released.

Consider the following:
A ~mag 8.0 Mw is still theoretically possible as an aftershock of the 2011 event. Pretty unlikely, I must emphasize, but it could happen. If they get a bigger one than that, then it'd be too big to view as an aftershock of the 2011 event and would probably be considered a new "main shock" event, with its own aftershock sequence to follow.

Then, there is still plenty of subduction fault line left along that coast that hasn't let go in a good while. Another quake in the mag 8 Mw range is expected to occur sooner or later further south: the so-called Tōkai quake. Scientists are expecting it because the Tōkai region has had huge quakes at pretty regular intervals, of about 100 to 150 years. And the last big one there was in 1854. They expect the next one to be at least a mag 8.0 Mw.

The Hamaoka Nuclear Power station is built by the sea, right on the subduction zone that would be the source of the next Tōkai quake. I believe it's currently still shut down as a precaution while they build a bigger protective anti-tsunami wall.

Then there's the Nankai Trough region, a bit further south but still off the coast of Honshu, which they estimate could produce a magnitude 9 event and huge tsunamis.

To be blunt, Japan is probably one of the worst places in the world to have nuclear power plants, especially by the sea and even more so with the levels of incompetence and obfuscation demonstrated by eg TEPCO. We've already seen why, with Fukushima in 2011. But seeing as that country is definitely going to get more huge quakes and tsunamis sooner or later (especially along that coast), it boggles the mind that they are even considering keeping these power plants at all.

Easily one of the best posts I've seen on here in a while.

Imminent huh? Lol

originally posted by: JustMike
a reply to: TDawg61
Well, as usual TEPCO is playing word games. Fact is, the Fukushima Dai-ichi reactors are already toast as they had meltdowns within hours to days of the March 11, 2011 mag 9.1 Mw quake and its tsunamis. So, seeing as they are not even functioning and their cores are already wrecked, they don't behave the way "healthy" reactors would.

Basically, they are "cooling" an already melted mess of core material, and probably not very efficiently. If the cooling fails, then the melted down cores will just heat up and melt down more and release more deadly material into the environment. Would that take a week? I doubt anyone really knows. I also doubt that TEPCO would break any speed records in releasing the info if it did.

As for the Spent Fuel Pools (SFPs), they are a worry because spent fuel rods are so highly radioactive and hence much more dangerous than new fuel rods. They need to be kept cool for years while their radiation level slowly decays to a level that allows them to be removed and then stored in special containers. If the SFP water drops too low and the rods get exposed to the air and rapidly overheat, they can begin to burn and release radioactive materials into the surroundings.

What's most disturbing about this is that yesterday's quake was "only" a low-range mag 7. USGS says it was a 6.9. JMA said 7.3, then 7.4. But even if we call it a 7.1 Mw (which is still a lot less than a 7.4), it released 1,000 times less energy than the 9.1 Mw in March 2011 and the shaking it produced was about 100 times less as well.

If they are having cooling problems and power outages with a quake in the low 7 range, I hate to think what might have happened if it had been a magnitude bigger: ie, ~10 times the violence of the shaking and cca 32 times the energy released.

Consider the following:
A ~mag 8.0 Mw is still theoretically possible as an aftershock of the 2011 event. Pretty unlikely, I must emphasize, but it could happen. If they get a bigger one than that, then it'd be too big to view as an aftershock of the 2011 event and would probably be considered a new "main shock" event, with its own aftershock sequence to follow.

Then, there is still plenty of subduction fault line left along that coast that hasn't let go in a good while. Another quake in the mag 8 Mw range is expected to occur sooner or later further south: the so-called Tōkai quake. Scientists are expecting it because the Tōkai region has had huge quakes at pretty regular intervals, of about 100 to 150 years. And the last big one there was in 1854. They expect the next one to be at least a mag 8.0 Mw.

The Hamaoka Nuclear Power station is built by the sea, right on the subduction zone that would be the source of the next Tōkai quake. I believe it's currently still shut down as a precaution while they build a bigger protective anti-tsunami wall.

Then there's the Nankai Trough region, a bit further south but still off the coast of Honshu, which they estimate could produce a magnitude 9 event and huge tsunamis.

To be blunt, Japan is probably one of the worst places in the world to have nuclear power plants, especially by the sea and even more so with the levels of incompetence and obfuscation demonstrated by eg TEPCO. We've already seen why, with Fukushima in 2011. But seeing as that country is definitely going to get more huge quakes and tsunamis sooner or later (especially along that coast), it boggles the mind that they are even considering keeping these power plants at all.

Thank you for that in depth analysis.I agree that having nuclear plants on an island is ill conceived,especially in a seismic active region.I was raised on long Island,NY when they almost finished a nuclear plant at Shoreham.The citizens revolted against the power company and bought them out.Just an insane idea for a nuclear plant as there would have been no escape in the event of any accident.