Japan 9.1 Unprecedented: Causes Experts to Rethink Fault Lengths and Magnitudes

reply to post by PuterMan


Lies! I see at least four quakes on your mainland and several off your coast from your map!


Well one thing's for sure: Japan's definitely got a "new" longer fault that IS capable of producing huge quakes in the 9+ region. Reading about the "orphan tsunami" that Japan got off its coast long ago that was generated off the Cascadia subduction zone makes me really wonder how powerful a quake could occur there. Because if it made it that far all the way across the Pacific with such a punch, then it must have been huge on the west coast of the US. That was probably a big quake in the 8 or 9 region to create such a beast.

I don't know if you have seen the consequences of a 9.5 one as the one we had in Valdivia in 1960. I have seen it, by first hand.
The whole landscape changed dramatically... When i saw the pictures of Valdivia pre-quake i was in shock.... the whole place changed completely!. The sea entered the city, rivers flowed backwards, boats were thrown onto the continent a few kilometers... some places are still under water till now (and those boats are still where the tsunami left them, rusted or absolutely under water you only can see the pipes of them popping out in the river). You can go sailing on the Calle Calle river and actually see pipes from old industries, and along the road you can see pretty lakes full of lotuses that used to be cultivable land!

Sometimes is hard to imagine how much damage can cause a quake over 9.0. For more information, Here you can find the wikipedia article of the 1960 quake in Valdivia... there's some pictures too. It's somehow the only good information source i was able to foud that's in proper english. There's some pictures of Valdivia pre quake, if you compare them to the nowadays Valdivia... it's absolutely different. Click here

After that introduction, it's scary, but yes, we are cappable of having a 10. Maybe we don't have as many quakes as Japan or other more seismic countries -in frequency- on the Ring of Fire, but ours are so violent and destructive, always. l was searching on the Wikipedia's list of chilean quakes and geez, i'm creeped out.

But lately, it seems that for our authorities, under 6.5 is just a "minor tremor"