Episodic Tremor and Slip (ETS) 2011 begining again on the West Coast....three months early.

Just over a year ago, I discovered something called an ETS...Episodic Tremor and Slip. Some amazing stuff. Here is a basic explanation for it:

In 2001, CWU researchers with the continuous GPS network Pacific Northwest Geodetic Array discovered periodic slow-slip across the Cascadia Subduction Zone. Previously undetected by seismic networks, these slip events exhibit regular recurrence intervals thus changing current understanding of earthquake behavior. Since this time, definitions for this newly discovered phenomenon have evolved. At first, the term "silent-earthquake" was employed to illustrate the absence of a seismic signature. Subsequent investigations and recent discoveries have led to a change in characterization. Now these slow-slip events are defined as eposodic tremor and slip (ETS).

In short, an ETS is a discreet time interval (episode) of relative tectonic plate movement (slip) coupled with high frequency seismic energy bursts (tremor). ETS usually last for around a few weeks duration as opposed to regular earthquakes where energy is released within seconds to minutes.
Due to continuous plate motion, the daily solution of any GPS measurement is recorded as a velocity; reflecting the overall strain accumulating in the upper crust. During an ETS, GPS velocities change direction until the event passes. This minute signal would go unnoticed without extended timeseries. With the proper corrections and long-term stablizations, GPS allows accurate measurements for each day. Since ETS usually last for over 10 days, this provides a nice measurement of offset that could not be recorded on the longest period seismometer.

Please see THIS LINK for the whole article with much more info and graphs, etc.

I began A THREAD last year where I have followed it ever since.


The tremor last year began on Aug 8, 2010 and lasted until around September 10th. The recent history suggests that the ETS occurs about every 14-15 months. (with small bursts in between) Therefore, they had not expected the next to be until November. BUT...it has started early. What does this mean? Well. that is what makes this so interesting; no one really knows.

This is from the official blog on the PNSN (Pacific Northwest Seismic Network):

There were nine arrays installed of ~10 continuous, three-component stations each starting in summer of 2009 through fall of 2010. Because of power limitations, the need for dataloggers for other PASSCAL experiments elsewhere and the amount of effort to service this many stations most arrays have been shut down for long periods when ETS was not expected. The 2011 ETS was expected to start in late October or early Novemeber based on the normal inter-ETS of 14-15 months. The arrays were to be restarted in early to mid Octorber.... BUT ------

On July 23 a tremor burst near Olympia (which we all thought was a typical short-lived inter-ETS tremor burst) just kept going. We waited for the tremor to die out, but it didn't. First it moved a bit south and then east and then hovered near Olympia until early August. We kept thinking it couldn't be a real ETS. It was too soon and seemed to start way too slowly. Besides much of the tremor was not as strong as we were used to seeing during previous ETS. But, after more than a week of significant tremor we started to panic and contacted the PASSCAL instrument center to see about getting some dataloggers back in the field sooner than originally requested.
PASSCAL came through and shipped us 48 datalogers on very short notice. THANK YOU PASSCAL STAFF! On Aug 5, when the tremor started clearly moving slowly north we double paniced and made preparations to head to the field ASAP.

The most recent blog:

Aug 20 - The leading edge of the tremor band reached Victoria this evening with the trailing edge now under the AofA. Indeed Honn Kao's TAMS Report from the PGC shows many coherent tremor locations under and just south of the southern tip of Vancouver Island. Today and tomorrow an AofA field team is checking on and possibly replacing week batteries at the more vulnerable array stations.

Please see the SOURCE to follow along.

I'll be updating this thread with any new info. For us quake watchers, or anyone with an interest in plate tectonics, this kind of stuff is like chocolate cake: you can never get enough!!!!

Some other sites to follow:

Interactive map of tremors (my favorite)

spectographs

USGS Pacific Northwest quakes

Wonderful interactive quake map for the PNW



Here is what the tremor map looked like for yesterday:

Very Nice indeed, well put together...........I will be following this as I believe in the harmonic motion theory as well. All cells vibrate.....all of them. Some slower than others....nice find amigo....

Damn girl... been waiting for you to start this thread!

This is so intriguing to me and you posed the best question of all.... WHY???? Mother nature does as she pleases, when she pleases. Lets just hope this isn't her way of warning us of what we know is to come. *sigh*

Hiya west, hope you're doing well.

Nice thread, and it reminds of something that happened just last week in the quake watch thread.

Anmarie96 had asked for an opinion on a spectragraph readout from a station on the west coast (she thought it was Oregon) in this post here:
www.abovetopsecret.com...

But when I went to look at it and looked up the station, it turns out it was EXACTLY right where you are showing this ETS to be taking place! See my reply with map here:
www.abovetopsecret.com...
Here it is again:



Now the big doggy entered with his usual bark and bite, claiming it was not seismic.

Now that I see where that ETS is happening, I think he better reconsider. Cause that 1 to 2 Hz showing on Anmarie's spectragraph may be exactly that. ETS.

So I know many people here on ATS are not usually welcome to speculation and thus people are reluctant to speculate. But I'd actually like to request your speculation. What do you think it could possibly mean? It coming early, I mean. Does it (the speculation) possibly tie in to other theories (using the term loosely) you've presented here in the past? Accurate predictions are not what I'm after. I'm after a discussion, just free-flowing ideas. I appreciate ideas from those in the know. And it's quite obvious, you're in the know.

So what do you think might be going on here?

reply to post by TrueAmerican


Hey TA!! Haven't 'talked' to you in awhile!

I totally missed that post..haven't been on too much lately. Wish I had seen it, coulda told them it was the deep tremors. Check this out:

complete spectograph display for that day

You can cleary see there was some activity. There were 316 deep tremors located that day.

Looks like today there were 326, same area as yesterday. The blog hasn't been updated yet since the 20th, but I'll post any changes.

You know, what I am really interested in right now? What kind of data there is for Japan prior to the 9.1. I know I read before that it was one of the few other places in the world that deep tremors occurred...meaning it must be monitored. Could this have been the warning they had right before? Perhaps what they detected that allowed them to activitate the warning some 30 seconds before it hit? I'm just really curious about what, if any patterns/changes in patterns occured in the months and days leading up to that release. My problem though is that when I search I tend to get a lot of stuff in japanese.

Hi Westcoast, great topic! I will be following this topic for sure. Great information to learn and follow.

I hope your dogs have calmed down some

reply to post by thinkingthing


Welcome to the discussion! Love the question....okay, I'll bite.

I envision it as a energy cycle, if that makes sense. It gains momentum as it 'comes back around'. If you were to go with my magma chamber theory...you have to picture a large tub of water. If you were to tip it slowly back and forth, the water would then slosh from side to side. Even if you continue to tip it at the same angle and speed, the energy being produced would grow and eventually the slosh would get bigger, finally spilling out the sides.

Make sense?

What does it mean? Again...pure speculation, I see it as a build up and increase in energy which is going to, at some point, lead to a climax and release of said energy. Be it a mega quake, volcanic activity or perhaps both.

When will it be? THAT is the real question. We all know it is going to happen. Experts say this century, which is no time at all, geologically speaking. These deep tremors haven't been monitored for very long so it is hard to know what this shortening in the cycle means, but I see it as a count-down. That it jumped ahead by 3 months is just a year is quite alarming to me. Also, that it never really seemed to stop (IMO) this whole past year. It wasn't just bursts...it was almost constant, and I've seen a direct correlation to quake activity and an up-tick in odd quakes in wierd places.

I think it is coming (mega quake)....I have absolutely no scientific reasons to back up this statement, but my gut tells me it will be in the next year or two. I hope I am wrong. This is one of the reasons I am so interested in this deep tremor study, because I think it might be key to an early warning. It could save hundreds of thousands of lives.

Very interesting subject you've shown us here. Perhaps it's worth contacting the USGC to see if they can bring you in contact with the Japanese counterpart? (if you don't want to arouse unwanted attention in anyway just say it's for a schoolproject or such)

Good luck and i'll be following this thread with great interest!

Star and Flag for you sir. An interesting topic (not really my area of knowledge) well presented without sensationalism. Becoming more of a rarity here recently.

One point to raise: How do we know this particular time period is abnormal?

As far as I can tell the phenomena has only been discovered in 2001 and only occurs every 15 months. Therefore this has only been observed around 8 times. Surely, in terms of Earth sciences, a sequence of just 8 events is not enough to determine a concrete pattern of frequency. The Earth works in mysterious ways on time scales much longer than we normally comprehend. For all we know it could follow a 15 months pattern for ten years, then 8 months for ten years etc. Longer term cycles.

reply to post by westcoast
The funny thing is that just yesterday I was thinking to myself that I had not seen a thread from you lately...

I have moved from the edge of puget sound,(Indianola to be exact),to a somewhat more higher elevation in southern Wa. If you are correct and a Mega quake is emminent, I don't think too many places in the Northwest will be safe.

I think we all need to take regular stock of our 3 day, (or more), emergency kit.

I love your posts Westcoast.... They are always thought out and informitive. I'm just being a little selfish in saying I hope you are wrong.

Red

I really like this post. I'm new here (as in just joined) but I've been exploring the boards for about two weeks. I am very interested in the questions and comments about "whats coming next" up until and beyond the 2012 marker.

It was stated above that information is hard to come by from the Fukushima Daiichi event since it is mostly in Japanese. What about the Christchurch New Zealand event or the 6.something earthquake that occurred in Siberia a week or two after the Japanese event? Were there similar indicators prior to those events that may be in English?
Just wondering since this could be a way to determine the flow of the tectonic activity around the Ring of Fire.

Please don't impose your reality onto mine. If you wake up every morning expecting a mega quake to hit and probably kill hundreds of thousands then that's on you. I have my own procedure.

Like I said to TA it's almost like you want it to happen, to finally convince yourself you wern't seeing things. If more of you want it to happen then it probably will.

Very interesting. I live in the Puget Sound area of Washington, so I will definitely keep an eye on this info. and thread. Thank you for posting.

A superbly executed thread....congrats to the o/p....flagged.

Hi ..Interesting post ...The sun and its output of energy must have some connection to what goes on under ground ..Have you found any connections ? If you look at these 2 charts of Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) – Daily Average Most Recent 3 Month Plot lasp.colorado.edu...

and Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) -F10.7-MF-SSN-Solar Activity Plot: www.leif.org... can you see any connection with the Episodic Tremor and Slip ? ...peace

reply to post by shoeshiner


Oh boy so according to your logic if I really wish something to happen it will happen? I was not aware of this mystical force. Perhaps if I close my eyes and wish really hard for a corvette, maybe in a couple of days a dealer will call me and say I have won a free corvette. I am goin to try this wish me luck.

Wow, interesting read, thank you. Do you see any factor in the new Colorado Quake? They don't get them very often apparently.

Also, I have surfed the net a few times and when I stumble across a foreign language I use Google translator. Just a thought I hope you can get some use from.

reply to post by DragonRain311

Get a thousand people to want you to get that corvette and you just might. Like why we all huddle together and say prayers to help someone in need. We all co-create our reality and if many want you to have that corvette and picture you getting it then they will allow it in their own reality that you get it.

reply to post by shoeshiner


Right. And the millions of people across the Horn of Africa that are wishing for food and water?

We are co-creators. To a certain extent. But recognizing reality is integral to co-creating. If you live in a make-believe fantasy world, then your co-creating will be as effective as that of a nutjob in a straight-jacket.

The most important aspect of co-creating is not wishing, it is acting. Action is how one creates. Studying the ways in which our reality behaves is a most appropriate action. How anyone could argue against that is beyond me.

Engaging in scientific methodology isn't evil. Encouraging ignorance and inaction is.