Quake Watch 2011

reply to post by muzzy


Are you saying lots of quakes in NZ volcanic areas, or generally?

Alaska looks busy on this recorder.

reply to post by PuterMan


Well I was saying NZ, but when you look around its everywhere.
Almost like the core is expanding

Just kidding, I hope

reply to post by muzzy

Just kidding, I hope

And why wouldn't it be? Expanding that is. Evidence for some of it is hard to deny.

Seems to be expanding in Iceland again!!

@UtahRosebud - have responded in u2u. Not ignoring you.

reply to post by muzzy

Actually its melting and freezing ....apparently...(the core that is)
link

Originally posted by muzzy
reply to post by zenius

 

there was another one later, Mag 3.0 at 7:04pm NZST, 8.78km south west of us, offshore Paekakariki, didn't feel it though.
Mag, Lat, Long, Date/Time UTC, Depth
3.0, 3517168,-40.96479,174.90576, 2011/5/22, 07:04:40, 30

and another one early this morning even closer, 3.46km away
REF:3517328
LAT/LONG: -40.94147, 174.97543
UTC: 2011/5/22 14:36:49
NZST: 2011/5/23 2:36:49
DEPTH: 64km
MAG: 3.623ML
LOCATION: Raumati South, Kapiti Coast, Wellington

I need to do some checking, GNS are doing some seiesmic explosion tests across the Tararua Mts from Paekakriki to Wairarapa and the East Coast, there was a report in the newspaper about people reporting ground shaking, windows rattling in Paekakariki about a week ago, it was one of the first explosions, confirmed by GNS.
Makes me think back to MoorfNZ and AoRaki down in Christchurch, isn't that what they were doing down there a short while prior to the Darfield and Port Hills quakes?

Can you imagine the uproar if this is what actaully triggered the Greendale Fault




That last quake is in a residential area, so I doubt it was one of the tests, also the size, how many tons of TNT is a 3.6ML again?


I did a quick Google search to find the news story, this is what it was about
www.times-age.co.nz...

"The detonations will happen at night when things are quieter, in a window from May 10 to 14," he said.

OK so the actual tests have already been completed, but heck what if they have set off the faults along the coast. Could just be coincedence. I'll do a map of our area for the last month or so and see whats up.

reply to post by zenius


Interesting, I shall have a read.

First off?

The origins of Earth's magnetic field remain a mystery to scientists

This is because the 'scientists' do not account for the plasma universe. Never mind they will get over it.

Iron at the centre? I think not. Daft theory dreamed up by men in white coats who know nothing about the way the universe works and, as above, thought it must be iron to explain the magnetism. Cojones! One day this silly theory will be disproved by the Electric Universe.

@muzzy

how many tons of TNT is a 3.6ML again?

About 3.8 tonnes.

reply to post by muzzy


I do remeber something about the seismic testing. It's a worry. Any blasting near fault zones would have to be potentially dangerous. Why do it? Surely there are other ways? That quake 20 km east of Chch, I wonder if it's on the same new fault...I wonder if it is spreading east? It's a worry.

Thanks for keeping us updated on what's happening over there.

reply to post by PuterMan

You won't like the article...it has that 's' word in it.
Tell me, how do the KNOW the core is solid iron anyway? Because of the p and s waves? Or do they have something more substantial than that?

reply to post by zenius


As far as I am aware it is only from the p and s waves and I read somewhere (I will find it) that a plasma core would have the same effect.

I have put a comment on your Geophysics thread as that is more appropriate. I need a mathematician as I think the 'scientists' may have shot themselves in the foot.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Here's a really interesting article about the Japan earthquake.

For Jean Paul Ampuero, assistant professor of seismology at Caltech's Seismological Laboratory who studies earthquake dynamics, the most significant finding was that high- and low-frequency seismic waves can come from different areas of a fault. "The high-frequency seismic waves in the Tohoku earthquake were generated much closer to the coast, away from the area of the slip where we saw low-frequency waves," he says.

Simons says there are two factors controlling this behavior; one is because the largest amount of stress (which is what generates the highest-frequency waves) was found at the edges of the slip, not near the center of where the fault began to break. He compares the finding to what happens when you rip a piece of paper in half. "The highest amounts of stress aren't found where the paper has just ripped, but rather right where the paper has not yet been torn," he explains. "We had previously thought high-frequency energy was an indicator of fault slippage, but it didn't correlate in our models of this event." Equally important is how the fault reacts to these stress concentrations; it appears that only the deeper segments of the fault respond to these stresses by producing high-frequency energy.

And even more fascinating (to me)...

For seismologist Hiroo Kanamori, Caltech's Smits Professor of Geophysics, Emeritus, who was in Japan at the time of the earthquake and has been studying the region for many years, the most significant finding was that a large slip occurred near the Japan Trench. While smaller earthquakes have happened in the area, it was believed that the relatively soft material of the seafloor would not support a large amount of stress. "The amount of strain associated with this large displacement is nearly five to 10 times larger than we normally see in large megathrust earthquakes," he notes. "It has been generally thought that rocks near the Japan Trench could not accommodate such a large elastic strain."

The researchers are still unsure why such a large strain was able to accumulate in this area. One possibility is that either the subducting seafloor or the upper plate (or both) have some unusual structures -- such as regions that were formerly underwater mountain ranges on the Pacific Plate -- that have now been consumed by the subduction zone and cause the plates to get stuck and build up stress.

The entire article is definitely worth a read.

Science Daily - Surprising Findings About Energy Distribution Over Fault Slip and Stress Accumulation

Originally posted by muzzy

Makes me think back to MoorfNZ and AoRaki down in Christchurch, isn't that what they were doing down there a short while prior to the Darfield and Port Hills quakes?

Can you imagine the uproar if this is what actaully triggered the Greendale Fault

Never say never, I guess. However, we were surveying the Springfield Fault, which is to the north of the 'new' Greendale fault. The maximum charges we used were 1/2 a stick of 500gm Magnum Powergel (ANFO) at a maximum depth of 1 metre. Even twenty metres away from detonation there groundswell/'whuump' was minimal.

It would be interesting to see if there is any literature on the effects of seismic surveys as precursors to earthquakes. I'm not aware of any (I haven't looked either!), however, we did the same at the Alpine Fault at Springs Junction and Inchbonnie and the Ostler Fault near Twizel as well as along the Bay of Plenty from near Matata to Whakatane. I guess stress, kinematics and other variables might have an effect, but at this stage I will go out on a limb and say that we didn't cause it!


On the road to Springfield:




On the road to Springfield:




A lovely place to stay. Maruia valley. Generator powered digs:




Inserting an electric detonator. Radios and cell phones off. No electric fences nearby. no lightning!:




Inchbonnie. Getting ready to 'blow'. That's me in the green helmet :

It's been 46 days since the last 7.0+... Another one is coming real soon.

Don't know where, don't know when... but soon... And the longer without any 7.0+, the larger it will be.

Prior to the 9.0 in Japan, the Earth didn't experience a 7.0+ for 50 days (march 9)... it was the foreshock, then boom, 9.0 2 days later. IMO it will not hit at least for the next 3 days. So we will probably hit another 50 days gap.

So my bet would be a 7.7+ at least in the coming weeks.

reply to post by aorAki

Well if we get a Mag 7 in the next 12 months somewhere across the Tararua's ...............

Surely those who thought up this process took possible triggering off a Fault into consideration? Risk Analysis?

Just seemed a coinsidence, haven't had many quakes along the Kapiti Coast since the 4.9 just off Raumati Beach on Feb 12th 2010 , 2km from my house.

reply to post by Vitchilo

You could be right, maybe the Mag 8 aftershock that we were talking about here after the east coast Honshu 9.0

Originally posted by muzzy
....

Surely those who thought up this process took possible triggering off a Fault into consideration? Risk Analysis?

Yep,there's a huge amount of paperwork.I know that for the BOP survey the insurance taken out was > $1000,000! This was for possible disruption of services (cables, pipes etc) but as I wasn't in charge ( I was just the Field Crew Chief) I wasn't privy to all the paperwork....I will try to find out though,especially regarding insurance and risk analysis. I'll report back. Interesting stuff.

I'm tending more towards coincidence at this stage.

reply to post by Vitchilo

And the longer without any 7.0+, the larger it will be

Actually current geological thinking is that the longer it is the less likely it is to be bigger. Can't remember where I read that but it is out there somewhere.

Not sure I agree but...

reply to post by aorAki

Yes it must be difficult to get permission to blow things up
I would have thought $1,000,000 insurance a bit on the low side, I have to have that size public liability cover to put a roof a residential home, and up to $5,000,000 to work on a commerical building depending on its value, are you sure there shouldn't be a couple more zeros on that?
Perhaps Govt. sponsored work gets a discount. I'm surprised that they can get insurance when using explosives at all

quakes of undetermined magnitude

When I update my Mag 5+ NZ Historical Quakes blog after an event I often download the complete list of NZ quakes up to that time and add up the numbers of the different magnitudes.
There are always some that never got a magnitude number.

In past years I attempted to do revisons on the daily maps and lists on the NZ Earthquakes pages eg July 2009 you can see there are some days that have been updated/revised.
It was a lot of work, especially since I started putting in the locations, as it has to be done manually (find the nearest town or geographical feature) as most web search programmes only find 50% of them, anything offshore doesn't list.
The point is, when you download a days worth of quakes off Geonet there are always big jumps in the CUSP_ID(reference) numbers and I assumed that they later find these quakes, normally Mag 2's.
From my revisions I found what was initially 25 quakes on a particular day later ( 1-2 months) became 50-60.

I stopped doing the revisions because it messed up the graphs as well, too hard to compare year to year because you were comparing preliminary data (todays) with revised data (past years)

messy messy messy.

Noticed yesterday I had a quick look at the 23rd UTC before I went to work, and seen these two quakes
REF, MAG, LAT, LONG,DATE/TIMEUTC, DEPTH, LOCATION
3517531, n/a, 3517531, -38.48544, 176.59462, 2011/5/23 0:25:35, 170, SW of Murupara, BOP
3517544, 4.74, 3517544, -38.61735, 176.22408, 2011/5/23 0:59:28, 2, E of Wairakei, Waikato

and thought, well that 4.74 will get some felt reports for sure, being so shallow and close to civilization, but nothing ever came up on the Recent Quakes pages of Geonets site.
Now when you download the data from the Search page both events are blank under the MAG column, and there is a 40 number jump to the next quake reference number.
40 unidentified quakes in 1hr and 37minutes, hell what was going on, and where
magma.geonet.org.nz... (just alter the dates the rest is automatic for NZ-wide coverage)

I often read on here about missing or disappearing quakes at Yellowstone or other locations in the USA, so it not restricted to Geonet.

I'm wondering if it is worthwhile doing the revisions again? It could be 1-2 months before those 40 missing quakes are ID'd and by then who cares?
How important is accuracy in a progressive analysis?

reply to post by muzzy

How important is accuracy in a progressive analysis?

There are many facets to this. If your analysis depends on comparisons to earlier years to determine trends then obviously it is important unless you are a climate scientist.

The next question is who is going to see these figures? If it is just readers of blogs then they may or may not go back, and any way with apologies to the enquiring minds of ATS, most people don't bother to check anything for themselves and accept what they are told at face value. This is why the sensationalist blogs survive.

If your target audience is people who are connected to the subject then obviously accuracy is important to maintain credibility, but here again many people will not go back to check in many cases.

Then there is your own personal pride weighed against your own personal time.

To have a completely accurate set of figures extending back many years is a thing of great beauty, but if it takes up all your free time, alienates the kids and costs you your marriage it is not worth it. (Well I assume not!!)

And finally, we are talking earthquake figures here and as we well know every provider comes up with different figures for the quakes so which ones are right? Does the fact that an earthquake is revised by one provider mean it is accurate? Since you are looking at magnitudes minor differences are not very significant. The same cannot be said for energy if talking of .5 mag difference.

I know there have been changes to the 2009 and 2010 figures in my 2010 analysis. They are not major changes and don't materially affect the outcome and that I think is the criteria to consider. In my case both these years will get corrected as they will form part of the 2011 analysis. IF I have time I may go back and change the 2010 analysis.

MAP

5.5

2011/05/24 17:43:25

52.573

-173.206

148.5

ANDREANOF ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN IS., ALASKA
USGS

Alaska's been having decent quakes, California's are getting a lil stronger it seems!