Quake Watch 2012

Welcome to Quake Watch 2012

At the start of the year when I created QW2011 (on 21st Dec 2010) I said :

2010 started out with a promise of being one of the busiest earthquake years ever, but towards the end of the year subsided into a definite quiet except for a 6.5 ML in Iran on the Winter solstice.....

....What will 2011 hold in store? Who knows.

As events turned out 2011 was far from quiet at the start with one of the world's largest earthquakes in March.

What will 2012 hold in store? Who knows. (Some would say the end of the world!)

Personally, as I have stated many times on Quake Watch 2011, I think it will be quieter except for a Mag 8 to 8.5 possibly somewhere. If that prediction turns out to be anything like my end of 2010 one then the world IS going to end in 2012!!!

We have all as a community learnt more during the course of 2011 and I can see it in the quality of posts that the 2011 thread enjoyed. Many of our members gained some of that increase through direct experience such as our New Zealand members who suffered the quakes on the South Island, and are still doing so today with nearly 8000 quakes since the start. We also have some members who survived the Tokohu earthquake to tell the tale.

Looking back at the 2011 thread and older

2011 First page and last page.

On the first page you will find links back to previous years - as below

Quake Watch 2010
Quake Watch 2009
Quake Watch 2008
Quake Watch 2007
Quake Watch 2006
Quake Watch 2004

Basic essentials are:

European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre

US Geological Survey 7 day listing
Latest Earthquakes Magnitude 2.5 or Greater in the United States and Adjacent Areas and Magnitude 4.5 or Greater in the Rest of the World - Last 7 days

or Mag 5+ only listing last 7 days worldwide

Live Internet Seismic Server page

Volcano web cams or probably better still All the volcano webcams of the world!

Helicorders and seismograms

These and hundreds more from the links on my site.

Don't forget there is a dedicated Volcano Watch 2012 and of course the Yellowstone thread just keeps on a growin'

Some other ATS 'Watch sites' can be found in my signature later as the 2012 versions were not available at the time of writing.

If you are interested in earthquake connected geophysics then there is an ongoing thread Geophysics - Discussion & Research hosted by Zenius. There are some interesting theories coming up here and it deserves a visit.

To all contributors - keep up the good work. To all lurkers - we know you are there and hope you benefit from our efforts. Please feel free to participate as well.

Some Resources:

USGS - U.S. Geological Survey Earthquake Hazards Program
EMSC - European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre
IRIS Seismic Monitor
Recent earthquakes measured by Geoscience Australia
Last month of events located by Earthquakes Canada
ASL DCC TELEMETRY STATIONS

c'mon now puterman...it's still 2011. we all know you love some EQs and are the man...but it's not even christmas of 2011. i know you don't want anyone stealing your thunder and all...but c'mon??? that would be like starting an official debate thread for a debate that hasn't even occurred yet. all other "official" quake threads were started after the new year.

doesn't seem very official when it's a prediction, now does it? wait til 2012 to start any official 2012 threads???

reply to post by ICEKOHLD


Last year both the Quake Watch and Volcano Watch threads were started before the end of the year, Volcano Watch on 20th Dec and Quake Watch on 21st Dec so we are a bit behind this year!

Have a merry X mass Puterman
And as always, thank you for your outstanding contribution to ATS.

I look forward to another year of your most prized reporting on quakes, PuterMan!

A moment to remember.

On March 11th, 2011, the day had started like any other, and we were talking about a 7+ earthquake that had happened in Japan. I had GEE up at the time, and had stepped away from the computer to cook dinner. In between duties, I was occasionally coming back in to have a glance at GEE.

Well you can imagine my surprise to see this:





The waveform was clipped, meaning the stations ERM and MAJO had saturated out. And showing 8+ mm/sec already! I knew that was BAD, BAD news immediately. Someone posted the initial thread literally a minute before I could. I don't know if I ever told you guys this, but I went on GEE later and found the closest non-clipped waveform I could find, and it was at station YSS. It was well over 9 mm/s, and a beast of beasts. The rest is history.

I am of the opinion that I will never see another quake that big or bigger in my lifetime. And if I do, then something is wrong, and out of the statistical norm.

Happy Holidays to all!

2011 was most definitely a year to remember.

TA...I had GEE up also, but for the West Coast. As the first waves rolled through a hard fist settled in my stomach. Yup...knew that was a BAD one. As I then watched the tsunamis roll in live, knowing that thousands were at that moment dying; well, I hope to never experience such a thing again. Even from such a distance it was heart wrenching and it still aches for what the people of Japan continue to go through even now.

Here is to a good year....I know we will continue to watch here together, learn together and let us hope not cry together.

reply to post by westcoast


Yes, my two absolute favorites....Puterman and Westcoast! THANK YOU so much for teaching me lots and for keeping us all informed! I really really appreciate it. May 2012 bring us all some calm, and if it doesnt, its nice to know we have you guys to clear things up for us! All the best to ALL OF US for 2012! xoxox

reply to post by PuterMan


i feel ya. it just seemed a little early.

you are the man. no doubt. looking forward to all the hard work from people like you and TA (and many others but y'all come to mind for EQs).

thanks for all you do! your hard work and contributions are greatly appreciated!

TextMagnitude 5.6 Date-Time Monday, December 26, 2011 at 16:12:36 UTC Tuesday, December 27, 2011 at 03:12:36 AM at epicenter Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones Location 19.151°S, 168.686°E Depth 69.9 km (43.4 miles) Region VANUATU Distances 75 km (46 miles) NW of Isangel, Tanna, Vanuatu 161 km (100 miles) SSE of PORT-VILA, Efate, Vanuatu 278 km (172 miles) NNE of Tadine, Loyalty Islands, New Caledonia 1848 km (1148 miles) ENE of BRISBANE, Queensland, Australia Location Uncertainty horizontal +/- 16 km (9.9 miles); depth +/- 4.9 km (3.0 miles) Parameters NST=259, Nph=259, Dmin=399.6 km, Rmss=0.69 sec, Gp= 83°, M-type=body wave magnitude (Mb), Version=7 Source Magnitude: USGS NEIC (WDCS-D) Location: USGS NEIC (WDCS-D) Event ID usc0007d1f

source(earthquake.usgs.gov...

Is this new?

reply to post by diamondsmith


Hi all. I thought I'd take advantage of this little lull to ask for an explanation of the term 'poorly constrainted' that USGS uses. what are we supposed to understand from this? As an example, the EQ a short time ago in Van, Turkey was poorly constrained. How does this appear on the equipment and is it reflected in felt reports perhaps?

Thanks for the thread Puterman, I knew it had to be created soon. I'll be quietly watching this one just like all the others!

reply to post by aboutface


Poorly constrained more often than not refers to the depth of an earthquake, but occasionally to the magnitude. Basically in English it means "Um, we don't really know"

The reason may be that an event is too far from a seismograph station to get a good triangulation, or because there is too much other 'noise' on the signal.

You might find this page of use however it does not really explain the term.

I think "Um, we don't really know" pretty much sums it up for us lay people.

Preliminary 2011 seismicity report

Possibly the first quake of 2012 (based on local times)

Reference Number 3635532
Universal Time December 31 2011 at 12:08
[color=00FF00] NZ Daylight Time Sunday, January 1 2012 at 1:08 am
Latitude, Longitude 43.47°S, 172.78°E
Focal Depth 9 km
Richter magnitude 3.3
Region Canterbury
Location
10 km east of Belfast
10 km north-east of Christchurch

www.geonet.org.nz...

the search page at Geonet hasn't switched over to 2012 yet, because it reads UTC time but thats the only one for past the 11:00:00 UTC mark which is midnight NZDT. (more confusion for 2012)

reply to post by aboutface


I always understood from reading other scientific papers that "poorly constrained" means that there was not enough information to make a more scientific assessment. This is often due to a lack of stations, or malfunctioning stations, at the time of the quake. Constraining a quake in the first place means to make educated guesses for each station that receives the waves about the difference between the P and S wave times, which in turn allows a guess on distance to station, and which when combined with other station guesses, in turn allows a plotting of radii from each station. Where multiple stations radii intersect, there's your epicenter.

If one or more stations are missing from that calculation, (three or more stations are best), then they are going to be missing a triangulating factor, which leaves a higher margin of error in the location or depth of the quake.

reply to post by TrueAmerican

I think its more to do with depth and magnitude than location
take that 4.0 in Ohio today UTC
(poorly constrained) beside the depth
location seems pretty certain
magnitude is presented as mblg which is guessing
on the UofColumbia page for the event they have magnitude type as unknown

reply to post by muzzy


Yes, and why was it poorly constrained?

1) It was a small quake, so did not travel all that far.
2) If you look at the historical seismicity, it appears to be a pretty rare quake, and in an unexpected area. Could be a new fault. Could be fracking.
neic.usgs.gov...

3) And that directly implies that there is a lack of stations close enough to qualify for the kind of precision needed to eliminate the "poorly contrained." Because they tend to setup networks in more active areas.

Okay, not sure if this is kosher or not, but since we are picking up the 2011 thread here, I am actually answering a post from the other thread. Hence...I will quote that post here:

Originally posted by PuterMan
reply to post by TrueAmerican

 

They are not man made. That is for certain. They are not harmonic or volcanic tremor either for certain. They don't seem to have a high enough frequency for ice quakes but i have to be honest and say I am not 100% certain how much higher ice quake signatures are. From Glacier peak i am guessing the main body between 10 and 30 Hz. The main body of these are under 5Hz which IMO makes them seismic. There are a lot of them. Many background one I can hear but don't show as much on the trace.

Odd looking blighters



They make a muffled double strike thud.

edit on 31/12/2011 by PuterMan because: (no reason given)

Thanks for all that Puterman (and also TA from earlier)....

Kinda what I was thinking. Don't seem like typical ice quakes but man that is a lot of very small quakes if they are in fact seismic. *scratching head*....if they weren't showing up on all three stations, I would say it is something else....but they ARE. And the frequency is there too. I dunno.

Well, so we have a swarm at Rainier, no doubt. Now the next question is, how bad is this going to get. And PM, you might wanna pull some earlier data from today and yesterday and check for volcanic or harmonic tremor... Cause a few of those sigs looked like they could be in there.

And btw, GEE has gone out, the end.

Just in case any readers are wondering what all this means:

Mount Rainier[7] is a massive stratovolcano located 54 miles (87 km) southeast of Seattle in the state of Washington, United States. It is the most topographically prominent mountain in the contiguous United States and the Cascade Volcanic Arc, with a summit elevation of 14,411 feet (4,392 m).[1][2] Mt. Rainier is considered one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world, and it is on the Decade Volcano list.[8] Because of its large amount of glacial ice, Mt. Rainier could potentially produce massive lahars that would threaten the whole Puyallup River valley.[9]

en.wikipedia.org...

Maybe that will get the attention of those wondering why this matters. That thing is very dangerous should it erupt in full.

I heard that that quake today in Ohio was only about 2 miles from a fracking site....surprise surprise

Here's an article from CNN www.cnn.com...

On Friday -- one day before the latest, stronger quake -- Ohio Department of Natural Resources Director James Zehringer announced that work would be halted on a fluid-injection well in Youngstown