Over FIFTY earthquakes in the last several hours in Alaska and still counting

The quakes and after shocks in the Rat Islands area are well above average for the states statistics. I think something is a brewin.

It is also important to remember that what some are refering to as aftershocks are in fact according to the USGS actual earthquake readings, and are recorded as such.

A while back a question had come up regarding if in fact these several hundred aftershocks for these Alaska swarms were in fact aftershocks or earthquakes.

I emailed the USGS and asked the question:

Re: 6.8 Quakes , Aleutians Fox and Rat Islands/Over 500 Aftershocks !! Pre-cursers to a larger Pacific North West Coastal event ?? Quote

Response from USGS!


George,

To verify that the earthquakes listed are indeed individual check the times and also look at the following information. The first site listed lets you zoom in to the point that you can discern different quakes and their magnitudes, depending on if their magnitude is high enough to be shown on the map.

[link to earthquake.usgs.gov]

activity around the Globe
Information describing current instrumentation at each Station


[link to aslwww.cr.usgs.gov]


Thank You

Frank Oehring

U.S. Geological Survey
Science Information and Library Services
1400 Independence Road, Mail Stop 231
Rolla, MO 65401
Toll Free: 888-ASK-USGS


06/14/2006 08:39 AM

To: [email protected]
cc: [email protected]
Subject: quake data questions

(removed personal info)========================================================

Could you please varify for me if each of these quake readings are actual seperate events and not several stations reporting the same quake.
[link to earthquake.usgs.gov]

Also, could you explain this activity around the Globe for me as well.
[link to aslwww.cr.usgs.gov]

Thankyou very much.......

So what I get out of the following is that each and every one of the yellow, blue or red squares on the USGS maps represent an earthquake because you can do the following:


"To verify that the earthquakes listed are indeed individual check the times and also look at the following information. The first site listed lets you zoom in to the point that you can discern different quakes and their magnitudes, depending on if their magnitude is high enough to be shown on the map."



[edit on 7/4/2006 by Fringefellow]

[edit on 7-5-2006 by worldwatcher]

A little something more about the Juan de Fuca region:

OREGON AT GREATER RISK FOR LARGE QUAKE THAN PREVIOUSLY THOUGHT:

I believe this to be so very true. My observations of seismograms from central Oregon coastal region indicate tremors on a daily basis while the rest of the coast for the states of Washington and Oregon are quiet.

The research team found that the locked portion of the Cascadia Subduction Zone -- where the eastward-moving Juan de Fuca Plate plunges under the western-moving North American Plate -- extends beneath the Coast Range and as far as the western side of the Willamette Valley. The locked zone probably is wider than previously thought, although the new data give less information about the width.
The researchers expected to find little movement because of the lack of earthquakes and previous data that showed little uplift in central-western Oregon, something commonly associated with a locked subduction fault. Instead, they found that the ground is moving nearly half an inch a year toward the northeast. The rapid velocity worries earthquake researchers and indicates that the underlying plates are locking up rather than sliding by each other, resulting in incredible strain.
As the Juan de Fuca Plate presses forward to the northeast in the locked zone, it causes the piggybacking North American Plate to bulge upward and inland toward the northeast. The pressure continues to build for years until an earthquake unleashes the stress in one powerful jerk, causing the bulge to collapse and forcing the area to drop instantly. www.angelfire.com... " target="_blank" class="postlink" rel="nofollow"> www.angelfire.com...

I went and found history from 1973 to present for Fox Island also




[edit on 7/5/2006 by Fringefellow]

Some interesting research Juan de Fuca

Ocean Explorers NOAA, Pacific Ocean Explorations

This is pretty cool stuff here…..Change of pace…… Mountain of the Sea

A collection of awesome 3D movies and ocean fly by’s.

Here are just a very few, that I liked a lot.

An overall image of the Submarine Ring of Fire 2004 expedition. (HR)


The location of Astoria Canyon and Heceta Bank in relation to major geologic features of the northeast Pacific Ocean
link

3-D image of Astoria canyon, looking southeast link

Most submarine volcanoes occur where tectonic plates are either moving apart or colliding. This image shows the many types of plate boundaries. Click link for expanded view, showing island arc system as well as mid-ocean ridge.

Autonomous Underwater Vehicle ABE (Autonomous Benthic Explorer) is launched over the side of a research vessel. ABE will be used to collect high-resolution multibeam bathymetry at Explorer Ridge, as well as CTD and magnetometer data.
link

View multibeam bathymetry collected on the 2003 and 2004 Submarine Ring of Fire expeditions (Quicktime, 3.2 Mb.)
Link

See the satellite and sonar survey animation of the Mariana Arc Volcanic Chain (Quicktime, 3.4 Mb.)
Link

Visit the Mariana Arc virtual fly-throughs and panoramas of eight individual sites.
Link

3-D rotation of Chapman's Reef (QuickTime, 2.4 MB)
Link

See how the ROPOS ROV is deployed at the Maug Island volcanic crater. (QuickTime, 1.9 Mb)
Link

The Innovator ROV being launched from the stern deck of the NOAA Research Vessel Ronald H. Brown.
Link


[edit on 7/5/2006 by Fringefellow]

Pretty quiet out on the Aleutian Islands this morning.


3.6 2006/07/05 13:29:57 52.167 176.519 15.0RAT ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN ISLANDS, ALASKA
2.5 2006/07/05 12:45:14 51.298-179.640 25.0ANDREANOF ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN IS., ALASKA
3.3 2006/07/05 02:46:00 50.565-176.166 1.0ANDREANOF ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN IS., ALASKA

STEEP (SainT Elias Erosion/tectonics Project) is a five year, multi-disciplinary study that addresses evolution of the highest coastal mountain range on Earth - the St. Elias Mountains of southern Alaska and northwestern Canada. The overall goal of the project is to develop a comprehensive model for the St. Elias orogen that accounts for the interaction of regional plate tectonic processes, structural development, and rapid erosion. The seismic component of this project includes passive seismic experiment utilizing the IRIS PASSCAL Program instruments. The total project consists of 22 new, telemetered, digital broad band seismic stations, most accessible by helicopter only (blue symbols- proposed sites). There are 12 existing stations in the area (green symbols). Eight new stations were installed in the coastal region in June 2005 (red sumbols). Freewave IP radios provide the telemetry to the newly installed VSAT at the Bering Glacier camp site. The challenge was to find ice-free locations, on bedrock, large enough to install equipment and still have a helicopter landing zone nearby. The stations consist of Quanterra Q330 digitizers with baler, a STS-2 seismometer installed in a vault, a Freewave IP radio, a Scala 900 Mhz antenna, twenty 100 AH rechargeable batteries with a 2400AH backup Celair primary battery, and three solar panels mounted on hut. The acquired data is recorded in real time at the Alaska Earthquake Information Center located in Fairbanks and is incorporated into the standard data processing procedures. High quality data allows for more reliable automatic earthquake detections in the region with lower magnitude threshold. In addition to tectonic earthquakes, glacial events that occur within the vast ice fields of the region are also regularly detected. Broadband instruments complement regional broadband network for more reliable calculations of the regional moment tensors.
On September 14, the newly installed network recorded a rock avalanche that occurred at around noon local time at Mt. Steller. This was an unprecedented event in the exitence of regional seismic network. Surface waves from this event were recorded by global seismic network. Scientists from Harvard University estimated surface wave magnitude of this event of 5.2.
This is a record section of seismic waves produced by the Mt. Steller rock avalanche.







[edit on 7/5/2006 by Fringefellow]

I am still reading thru your information Fringefellow, but from what i can see...

Welcome to ATS... you are just our type... quite excellent research.

Your skills will be appreciated here, I am sure...
thanks for the good info

Yes a lot of good information to be sure, but reading thru it especially that reply from the USGS, I can't help but wonder what your purpose is. I saw nothing in the letter that indicates that the USGS was either concerned nor giving credibility to a major event as a result of the recent swarm of earthquakes in the island chain.

You say you have a special interest in the region, and it seems to me you are predicting some major event. Do you have a date yet? Would be nice to warn the area.

Originally posted by zorgon
Yes a lot of good information to be sure, but reading thru it especially that reply from the USGS, I can't help but wonder what your purpose is. I saw nothing in the letter that indicates that the USGS was either concerned nor giving credibility to a major event as a result of the recent swarm of earthquakes in the island chain.

You say you have a special interest in the region, and it seems to me you are predicting some major event. Do you have a date yet? Would be nice to warn the area.

I think that because I have commented on my interest in the PNW regarding the Endeavour region ( Juan de Fuca, Gorda, and Explorer Plates ) and meanwhile posting about Alaska, that I have contributed to the confusion about my interests.

I think I would like to start by clearing up the qusetion about the USGS email.

The question I had asked them was how to tell the difference between aftershocks and an actual earthquake. What number of the hundreds of seismic events that they were posting during the first swarm at Rat and Fox islands would we count as a aftershock or consider it a quake.

The Response:

Response from USGS!


George,

"To verify that the earthquakes listed are indeed individual check the times and also look at the following information. The first site listed lets you zoom in to the point that you can discern different quakes and their magnitudes, depending on if their magnitude is high enough to be shown on the map. "


told us that to varify that the events listed at USGS are indeed individual earthquakes because each had a specific time associated with it. Also because the site maps allowed us to zoom in to each event we could discern each quake and their magnitude. The fact that the seismic events magnitude is enough to place it on the map tells that it is an actual quake.
We simply wanted to clear up the difference so that we knew we were not counting aftershocks towards the total amount of quakes that we were counting when posting. There had been several hundred seperate quakes. And some had thought that technically we were making a bigger deal out of the event than it really was, because we were counting aftershocks as quakes.

Hope that came out right.........

So when you asked:

"I saw nothing in the letter that indicates that the USGS was either concerned nor giving credibility to a major event as a result of the recent swarm of earthquakes in the island chain".

Your correct that they were not concerned nor were they giving specific credibility to a major event as a result of the swarm. Neither were we......

Moving on........ My personal interest in a region? I have just recently became interested in learning about earthquakes. I am not an expert, nor claim to be. So if I ever come across as such, then I have somehow and unintentionaly given that impression. With that said, the PNW Coastal region just sort of became of special interest to me. As I started to learn what little I could pick up, the PNW just really stood out, and is so interesting from not just an earthquake standpoint, but having access to some of the research that is going on there under programs like SOSUS, and their acoustic monitoring prgram, the NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, Keck Seafloor Seismic Network, and the NEPTUNE program comming up jointly between the U.S. and Canada is all quite amazing to me. The Endeavour region off the PNW is extremely active with vents, volcanic, and seismic activity.
Any way, to make this short, because of all the online information that is availbale to the public via the interenet combined with the possibility that in fact their may be an upcomming significant quake at this area gives one a lot to look at.

The question also came up..... Am I predicting some major event? Yes and no. Predict is probably the wron term for where I am at with all this.

Ran out of room, will continue on the following post.

I have learned that just because there is an event on one part of the Pacific Plate, not to expect a reaction some place else. That their are way to many variables.

Yet when I watch these recent events on the upper Pacific Plate (Alaska), and when considering the movement of the Plate, combined with what appears to be a movement East from the original swarm to this recent Andreanof Islands region, and then noticing an apparent increase mainland Alaska, just leaves me to believe that these seismic activities next move will be down the coast of Canada and on to the PNW. The slip/strike movement of the Pacific and North American Plates makes this a possibility. Just my humble opinion, not meant to come across as a prediction.

To follow all of the different earthquakes going ob around the planet, and have a reasonable opinion about them all was just too overwhelming. The amount of information aquired just to have even a reasonable opinion about the PNW alone is overwhelming. So my energies as far as learning about earthquakes ( earthchanges ) just sorta worked out to be focused on this area. Besides Washington State is my home!

I feel as though I am starting to ramble, and trying to find the words to explain where I am at with learning about earthquakes is difficult.

I can tell ya, that because I am interested in earthchanges as a whole, I have found that learning about earthquakes has allowed me to be involved with a piece of that, (earthchanges) which in return rewards me with having something tangable, something that I can actually touch in a way, and sorta find my little nitch so to speak in the realm of earthchanges.

Okedokey............ Piza is here So hope I did not ramble too much.

I am just learning what I can as I go, and looking for a place to learn from others, post some things as I go, and whatever.........................

[edit on 7/5/2006 by Fringefellow]

Originally posted by Fringefellow So hope I did not ramble too much.

Thats okay... don't call it rambling... just enthusiasm.

That about answers my questions, and I figured you lived in the area.

I was watching the progression of quakes since the tsunami hit and it seemed a clear pattern of progression around the ring even to port charlotte so I was watching oregon and cali closely...

then the quakes bypassed Cali and hit further along the south african coast...

Kinda like cali dodged another bullet... and so much for my attempt at prediction

Originally posted by Fringefellow
I saved a whole lot of links and great info that came up while monitoring these quakes at GLP. Here are some great ones.

A guy from GLP posted these. They are awesome links:

Here is a link to plate dynamics from the USGS pubs.usgs.gov..." target="_blank" class="postlink" rel="nofollow"> pubs.usgs.gov...
It is significant because it demonstrates how the Pacific Plate rotates towards the North West and the North American Plate moves South West.

This next one provides a clickable map as well as a description of plate tectonics www.extremescience.com...

Plate Tectonic History of Southern California, along with a quicktime download animation: animations.geol.ucsb.edu...

The reason these were provided was because it was thought that the two sub plates ( Juan de Fuca and Cocos ) might be moving in response to the Aletutian Island shift while the main North American, Pacific plate boundaries are staying somewhat stationary. www.iris.edu...

There are some great people over there posting at this GLP www.godlikeproductions.com.../27/06&mpage=1 thread. If anyone here would like to go over and post this ATS thread there, I bet a few would join in here………

[edit on 7/4/2006 by Fringefellow]

Going back over my posts and realized that the link above for "plate dynamics from USGS" for some reason goes to something completely different than where it is intended.

What is weird is that the url is correct, and works when I copy and paste it.

I am going to post it as a link again and see if it take us to where we want to go.

pubs.usgs.gov...


It's a great link!



[edit on 7/5/2006 by Fringefellow]

[edit on 7/5/2006 by Fringefellow]

Tectonic Setting:

The Pacific and the North American tectonic plates move in complex, irregular patterns resulting in earthquakes with faulting that differs along their boundaries. The Fairweather fault in Southeastern Alaska marks one of these boundaries. The the south, in the vicinity of California, the boundary is marked primarily by a large transform fault system which is the San Andreas and the numerous secondary faults. The San Andreas fault is also the boundary between the Mendocino fault separating the Gorda and Pacific Plates.

Immediately north of this area is the Cascadia subduction zone which marks the boundary between the Gorda and Juan de Fuca plates offshore and the North American plate. The Gorda plate is the block being sub ducted beneath the North American plate. However, a thrust fault of this type slopes gently relative to the earth’s surface. Earthquakes along such a thrust fault push the rock above the ramp up and over the rock beneath it. In very active subduction zones, the boundary between the plates resembles a giant thrust fault, which usually extends for hundreds of miles in length. Link



Structural elements of the Puget Lowland [Johnson and others, 1999] . S = Seattle; SF = Seattle Fault; SWF = southern Whidbey Island fault; T = Tacoma; SB = Seattle Basin; HC = Hood Canal; CBF = Coast Range Boundary Fault. The dotted line near Tacoma is the Tacoma fault. Triangles represent arc volcanoes.

The Puget Lowland is seismically active, due to the interaction of two tectonic forces: oblique subduction of the Juan de Fuca plate under North America and clockwise rotation of the Washington/Oregon forearc. Forearc rotation may be caused by the oblique subduction of the Juan de Fuca plate.


Since 1964‘s tsunami spawned by a 9.2 earthquake in Alaska, two smaller earthquakes and a mysterious sonic boom have provoked actual evacuations. But geologists are focused on what is expected to occur some time in the future in what is called the Cascadia Subduction Zone. In this area – located along a 1,300-kilometer fault line in the Pacific Ocean, not far off the Oregon coast -- two of the great tectonic plates that form the earth's crust crunch together.

“It builds up stress and builds up stress until it lets go in a humongous earthquake,” says Oregon geologist James Roddey, who says such a quake occurs once every few hundred years. “California [to the south] will never experience an earthquake the size that we someday will get in the Pacific Northwest,” he says, “because the plates in California are parallel to each other.

OREGON AT GREATER RISK FOR LARGE QUAKE THAN PREVIOUSLY THOUGHT:

I believe this to be so very true. Observations I have made of seismograms from central Oregon coastal region indicate tremors on a daily basis while the rest of the coast for the states of Washington and Oregon are quiet.

The research team found that the locked portion of the Cascadia Subduction Zone -- where the eastward-moving Juan de Fuca Plate plunges under the western-moving North American Plate -- extends beneath the Coast Range and as far as the western side of the Willamette Valley. The locked zone probably is wider than previously thought, although the new data give less information about the width.
The researchers expected to find little movement because of the lack of earthquakes and previous data that showed little uplift in central-western Oregon, something commonly associated with a locked subduction fault. Instead, they found that the ground is moving nearly half an inch a year toward the northeast. The rapid velocity worries earthquake researchers and indicates that the underlying plates are locking up rather than sliding by each other, resulting in incredible strain.
As the Juan de Fuca Plate presses forward to the northeast in the locked zone, it causes the piggybacking North American Plate to bulge upward and inland toward the northeast. The pressure continues to build for years until an earthquake unleashes the stress in one powerful jerk, causing the bulge to collapse and forcing the area to drop instantly.


THIS IS AWSOME, and extremely detailed !

The result is the most detailed visual survey of the California fault ever made.


[edit on 7/5/2006 by Fringefellow]

Quiet day........

2.7 2006/07/05 17:29:42 51.096-179.955 20.0ANDREANOF ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN IS., ALASKA
2.6 2006/07/05 17:06:48 50.900-179.317 5.0ANDREANOF ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN IS., ALASKA
3.6 2006/07/05 13:29:57 52.167 176.519 15.0RAT ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN ISLANDS, ALASKA
2.5 2006/07/05 12:45:14 51.298-179.640 25.0ANDREANOF ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN IS., ALASKA
3.3 2006/07/05 02:46:00 50.565-176.166 1.0ANDREANOF ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN IS., ALASKA

Wow………

Yesterday the upper most USGS webicorder station was out. Today all of Washington and Northern Oregon are down.
I will drop them an email to find out what I can.

Once a day I like to take a look at these stations.

For today will start at Central Oregon and work down.

The Toledo Oregon station TOLO is active with tremors as usual with some anomalies that I have mentioned before. I will post a few days worth of these and come back to a couple of explanations that I have come up with. Interesting stuff…… One is out on the fringe a bit, but very interesting.

The Tahkenitch station TAKO is quiet except for a few anomalies and it also picked up the 2.6 2006/07/05 17:06:48 50.900-179.317 5.0ANDREANOF ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN IS., ALASKA quake at 17:00 UTC
There is a significant tremor at 22:30 UTC not listed with USGS.

I post any interesting webicorder seismograms that are interesting once a day for the coastal PNW region. Mainly because as time passes I can share, and hopefully others here will recognize unusual activities at the Central Oregon Coastal region. All other stations up and down the coast are quiet as are the inland stations.

Bear with me and will point out some interesting ideas a bit later.


[edit on 7/5/2006 by Fringefellow]

Hi there fringefellow, excellent links concerning a topic that I've espoused several times on this board (look at my post history ), I have a feeling Cascadia is due for a pressure relief.

2006/07/05 10:46:15 51.25N 130.45W 10.0* 3.5ML 189 km SW of Bella Bella,BC
Earthquake Canada

Every time there is a quake for either the Explorer, Juan de Fuca, or Gorda plates it is relevant to my observing the coastal PNW.

This 3.5 is on the Northern Explorer Plate , important because as the quakes build off the coast of BC and the coast of Northern California’s Gorda plate, it may be contributing to a build up in pressure on the Juan de Fuca.

So this 3.5 will be another to add to the recent activity for the Gorda Plate.

Offshore BC Canada's Juan de Fuca's Northern Gorda Plate:

2006/06/28 15:15:18 52.90N 132.28W 20.0* 1.7ML 50 km SW of Sandspit,BC
2006/06/28 01:08:54 48.51N 128.82W 10.0* 4.0Mw 224 km SW of Tofino,BC
2006/06/27 23:21:42 48.55N 128.78W 10.0* 4.0Mw 220 km SW of Tofino,BC
2006/06/27 19:01:29 51.15N 130.91W 10.0* 1.9MLSn 222 km SW of Bella Bella,BC
2006/06/26 17:55:16 50.63N 127.55W 4.6 0.6ML 12 km SW of Pt. Hardy,BC
2006/06/25 21:00:19 51.48N 130.71W 10.0* 2.7ML 193 km SW of Bella Bella,BC
2006/06/23 09:03:36 51.48N 130.83W 10.0* 1.7ML 201 km SW of Bella Bella,BC
2006/06/23 07:59:56 51.51N 130.66W 10.0* 1.6ML 189 km SW of Bella Bella,BC
2006/06/23 05:57:27 49.57N 127.24W 20.4 1.6ML 83 km SW of Gold R.,BC
2006/06/23 03:56:41 49.60N 127.21W 20.7 0.5ML 80 km SW of Gold R.,BC


Meanwhile getting the squeeze put on the Juan de Fuca from the South as well:

Off Shore Northern California:

2.8 2006/06/29 02:54:17 40.997-124.498 23.1OFFSHORE NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
3.0 2006/06/28 08:14:22 40.369-125.198 5.0OFFSHORE NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
2.5 2006/06/27 18:00:14 40.689-124.621 9.9OFFSHORE NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
3.2 2006/06/25 17:21:20 40.600-125.647 2.6OFF THE COAST OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
3.3 2006/06/21 23:23:22 40.340-124.661 24.8OFFSHORE NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
3.0 2006/06/21 17:12:12 40.341-124.688 19.8OFFSHORE NORTHERN CALIFORNIA

Hello there danger,

I will go and check out your posts a little later tonight.
Please continue to check in here. I hope to get some input from some ideas I have coming up a bit later.