Another Earthquake Near Anchorage

We just had another sizable quake here in Anchorage. I'll post the info as it comes available. Rocked my building like a boat but not enough to do any damage.

Yup, that is pushing 3 mm/sec in GEE, I saw it. My guess is 5.5 to 6.5.

Actual 5.3 revised to 5.2- Epicenter was very close to station AK.SSN in Susitna

lol, you had this post up within a minute or so of it happening, right? I have at least 1 minute latency in GEE.

[edit on Wed Aug 19th 2009 by TrueAmerican]

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/b152424c7e15.jpg[/atsimg]

OK, 5.2 35 miles from me. The ground here is so fluid that these feel like being in a small boat rocking on a lake.

reply to post by TrueAmerican


I guessed a 4.5 here in Anchorage which is likely close. I've lived both here and in Southern California so I'm getting good at guessing. If the plants start swaying its always a 4.5 or higher.

Oh well, not very exciting. They adjusted to a 5 at USGS and the newspaper site has it at a 4.9 about 31 miles from me. Woke me up anyway.

I lost my feed with Alaska Volcano Observatory seismic data which if I remember well has a main hub in Anchorage. I wonder if it's related to this earthquake.

reply to post by Shirakawa


Hmm, you mean you lost the feed just now when this quake happened? In GEE, all AVO stations are up and available. I am actively monitoring AV.AMKA which is on their network, and no loss of feed there for me- it's still running fine now.

reply to post by TrueAmerican


I turned off GEE just minutes before the earthquake (since I loaded for a test many networks and this slowed down the program considerably), then when I got back to my pc and discovered from a Redoubt webicorder at the AVO website that something bigger than normal happened, I turned GEE on again, and discovered that I could load all networks except AV*.

I also tried to restart the program, but the problem persists.

[edit on 2009/8/19 by Shirakawa]

* to clarify, simply no station from that network gets loaded.

[edit on 2009/8/19 by Shirakawa]

I'm not intending to slight you having this EQ, but I am curious as to why this warranted a thread, considering Alaska has never NOT had constant EQ's?

Isn't it kinda like stating that a volcano in Hawaii is spewing lava?

Again, no critical thoughts meant against ya

reply to post by Shirakawa


yeah man, GEE is a buggy program. It does stuff like that. There are times when if you're already in, it will continue to feed you data, but if you try to reset GEE and reload, they won't come up at all or give you the "GEE servers are unavailable" message. I just checked again, and AV.AMKA is still feeding me data. It does other weird stuff too

Like for instance, right now I cannot load either US.LKWY or TA.H17A or TA.I17A because it gives me the other big window error message...Would you mind seeing if you can pull those up?

reply to post by Misfit


Probably because it occurred in the most densely populated region of Alaska? It's a pretty big state.

[edit on 2009/8/19 by Shirakawa]

I noticed on the other short thread someone mentioned the west coast. When I went to look at this on the USGS map, I noticed alot of new activity this afternoon in the west, just further inland, Nevada, Utah and Colorado.





[edit on 8/19/09 by opal13]

reply to post by Misfit


Lots of people here interested in these. Some are keeping track to follow patterns. Sorry if Alaska is of no interest to you. About 350,000 people live in this general area. It is of interest to us.

Originally posted by Blaine91555
Sorry if Alaska is of no interest to you

That's not how I meant the question, hence my twice remarking I wasn't being critical.

I was just trying to find out why a thread about an EQ in an EQ prone region of the world was submitted.

reply to post by Misfit


Because as stated already, it was in a densly populated area, it was much larger than most of them, there is also volcanic activity in Alaska and there are many of us that watch the quakes and volcanic activities and try to see what ties in together and also, the effect that earthquakes might have on other parts of the world (using the for every action, there is a reaction theory). If you go to USGS.gov and look at the size of the quake as opposed to the regular everyday tremors that occur, you would see the significance.

Also, there are the ones who take the time to watch the monitors and relay that information on to some of us who are unable to monitor these things (like can't download that kind of thing on the work computers).

That is why there is a fragile earth section. Some of us just enjoy studying these things. And for anything this size or larger, it is easier to just start a new thread for each one, unless of course it is related, say for instance, should there be any more notable quakes and/or aftershocks in the general area.

Hope that's got it cleared up for ya!



[edit on 8/19/09 by opal13]

Originally posted by Misfit
I was just trying to find out why a thread about an EQ in an EQ prone region of the world was submitted.

Maybe because:

1) He broke the news of this quake faster than anyone else in the world. Why? Because he was there, felt it, and posted it, even as I was watching the thing in GEE. That's worth something.

2) There are several of us who value news like this, that quick, when we are monitoring programs like GEE in near real time. We were even able to come pretty close to guessing the magnitude of this quake BEFORE the USGS even reported on it. That's also worth something. From his perspective, all he knows when it's happening is the fact that he is getting shaken, and he does not know anything else. Like for instance, how close was this quake? Was this a huge quake far away, or a smaller quake close by? How serious is it? Until the USGS or other network reports, you just don't really know. And so the concern becomes necessary to satisfy.

3) To you this is just a thread, while to him he got rocked. Big difference. You ever been in an earthquake? The ground is the one thing we all routinely rely on as rock solid. When that shakes, it is an unnerving experience. Try it sometime.

4) According to your line of reasoning, there should have never been the big Yellowstone thread here, because that is also an EQ-prone region of the world. They have hundreds of small quakes a year in the park.

5) EQ watching has become of serious interest to many here, and for me it is very interesting to get news like this, take some guesses, and then see what the outcome is. Sorry if you don't share the buzz.

Originally posted by TrueAmerican
You ever been in an earthquake?

Spent most of my life in the Bay Area, including the LomaPrieta.

Originally posted by TrueAmerican
4) According to your line of reasoning

Jeebuz you folks are testy today, it was just a damn simple question. Did no one read the remarks that I was not dissing anyone NOR the thread?

reply to post by TrueAmerican


Yes, I can load them fine.

In the end to solve my problem I had to recur to some form of "hacking", so now when I start up GEE the program directly loads the AV network instead of going through the process of adding networks through the Station Chooser window (and wait too much time for my likings).