Moderate Quakes Striking Odd Places in USA...Coincidence Or Not? Let's Find Out.

reply to post by westcoast


Yeah, that's about the range I was thinking when I saw it, 3.8 to 4.2. At that distance, dragonlover12 is helping us establish a lower magnitude limit. They will probably upgrade the 3.2 in the days to come. I just laugh. Funny it takes a bunch of ATS amateurs to get to the truth, when we pay the USGS to get it right and they often don't.

You see that calibration pulse on TA.V35A at nearly 9 mm/sec? Lots of different kinds of calibration pulses. Interesting they chose now to do it after that error.

reply to post by westcoast


You're still backwards dearie.

When he barometer drops the pressure decreases, when it raise that's the amount of weight the air has per square inch going up.

Sea level pressure is around 14 psi (i think, its been a long time so i may be wrong) give or take, the higher up in the atmosphere you go, the less dense it is resulting in a corresponding pressure drop. As to descending into the ocean, pressure increases and the barometer shows a corresponding rise.

Once you've been. Slow a certain depth, you have to depressurize before you can return to atmospheric pressure. Gases Build up in your blood and come bubbling out if you don't take precautions.

Regards the earthquakes, this is turning in to quite the active area, is it not?

Any way we can get a historical comparison for the vicinity? I note also that most of them are quite shallow, of course that could be a function of seismic activity in the eastern units states, which weve recently learned is woefully under represented in scientific study.

reply to post by dragonlover12


I'm on the OK/AR line in Siloam Springs and we feel them all too, some are just a little shaking, the big one was a "rolling earth". Some days the ear pressure and nausea get bad and you know there will be more than 1 that day. Its kinda of a freaky feeling though always wondering if the next is going to be bigger. My sister just realized that her house in Tulsa is above the abandoned coal mines. Her house really shakes even with the little ones. She is beginning to get pretty nervous wondering if that whole section of Tulsa will fall in especially if there are larger quakes.

reply to post by ur44lois


Well the USGS has already admitted that coal mining causes quakes. I saw it in an earthquake summary on their site, not sure which quake, was a couple weeks ago. But they also try to make a clear distinction between those kinds of quakes and fault-generated quakes. For all we or they know, these quakes in OK for example might just be small, intraplate faults responding to the tremendous forces the entire North American plate is under. The plate is moving continuously, and that is naturally going to cause faults on the interior to respond sooner or later.

The same could be the case for Virginia, Arkansas, and Utah, too.

So first i need to apologize for my obvious lack of understanding regarding the barometric pressure and affects. Thanks for explaining it though, it is something that I think most definitely ties into our closed ecosystem (obviously) so needs to be understood when talking about physical affects by possibly the weather, solar flares, or the EMP/radon release from quakes. I looked at the local weather station last night, and the pressure did go up for most of the day, due to a front that came in (lots of wind last night). Perhaps that is all it was. Interesting stuff though.

TA, I have been feeling that all these odd little/moderate quakes are connected in that they might all be symptoms to a much larger process (as you suggest), vs individual tectonics.

reply to post by westcoast


While quakes can happen anywhere, especially where they have happened before, lately I am really starting to concentrate on areas that have not seen quakes in a very long time, or ever. After what that one seismologist said about the hazard maps proving to be continuously wrong, it has shifted my focus more to these areas.

And what I am looking for is sections of faults that have been dormant, or haven't had a massive quake in a long time. Northern Central America is a case in point. The southern part of the Japan Trench is another, as I have been drilling home for a while now. The Northern Caribbean/NA plate boundary is another. And more relevant to this thread, many places in the USA, like Charleston, SC. And of course, the dreaded Cascadia. Parts of Alaska, and even some of the faults in Yellowstone area. After all, a 7+ hit on an intraplate fault there at Hebgen Lake. So what other massive faults might be lurking there, ready to bring misery to the unsuspecting?

All these are places of concern, as stress has been building forever. These are the places of great risk, it seems- unless what PuterMan said is true, and due to the elasticity of the local geologic crust composition, stress doesn't really build up much in some areas.

reply to post by TrueAmerican


Well, since the popular theory is that energy never ends, simply transfers, it's too bad we don't have the 'master' formula to figure it all out.

For me, at this point anyways, I think it makes sense to picture it as a give-and-take, or yin-and-yang. It seems ot me that there has to be the same amount of energy being transfered throught the crust at any given time.

I like your idea of looking at 'dormant' faults. Ofcourse the most dangerous ARE the unknown.

Originally posted by TrueAmerican
reply to post by ur44lois

 

For all we or they know, these quakes in OK for example might just be small, intraplate faults responding to the tremendous forces the entire North American plate is under. The plate is moving continuously, and that is naturally going to cause faults on the interior to respond sooner or later.

The same could be the case for Virginia, Arkansas, and Utah, too.

Yes! This is what I believe to be happening. The NA plate is enormous--and different parts of it are moving at different rates, according to gps data. So there is stretching in some parts, compression in others. It makes intuitive sense to me that ancient faults from the Permian or Jurassic will be weak spots that become the epicenters of the quakes we are seeing today.
Here is another recent quake on a spreading ridge that is (probably*) nudging North America a little further WSW.

(* I'm still not completely sold on mantle convection theories, spreading ridges, etc--I think the mechanisms for plate movement are much more complicated than the current theories show.)

One pale blue digital star for you TrueAmerican

So I don't know if it is all becuase of this recent 3.3 quake in Oklahoma, or if my 'spidey' senses are really tingling.

Magnitude 3.3
Date-Time Sunday, December 25, 2011 at 14:10:41 UTC
Sunday, December 25, 2011 at 08:10:41 AM at epicenter
Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location 35.399°N, 96.528°W
Depth 10.4 km (6.5 miles) (poorly constrained)
Region OKLAHOMA
Distances 36 km (22 miles) ENE of Shawnee, Oklahoma
57 km (35 miles) WSW of Okmulgee, Oklahoma
70 km (43 miles) N of Ada, Oklahoma
90 km (55 miles) E of OKLAHOMA CITY, Oklahoma

Location Uncertainty horizontal +/- 8.6 km (5.3 miles); depth +/- 10.8 km (6.7 miles)
Parameters NST= 47, Nph= 47, Dmin=20 km, Rmss=1.06 sec, Gp= 32°,
M-type="Nuttli" surface wave magnitude (mbLg), Version=4
Source Magnitude: USGS NEIC (WDCS-D)
Location: USGS NEIC (WDCS-D)

Event ID usc0007crs

source


I'm pulling up GEE for the first time in weeks...just feel a need to watch right now.

I am also laid up from recent hip surgery, so maybe I am just getting cabin fever.

Merry Christmas to all, and let's hope it is a quiet one!!

So I'm giving this a shamelss bump, because...well.....I still really feel like we need to keep an eye on Oklahoma.