Quake Watch 2012

Puterman, Did you get to experience your first earthquake?!?
Hope all is well

ETA: I'm getting a little nervous...it's been about 3 hours since the quake off Ireland and no word from Puterman. Will take this as he is doing his real job and doesn't have time to report in

Just a few snippets about the Irish quake:

A spokesman for the British Geological Survey, which monitors seismic activity in the UK and Ireland, said the quake happened just before 9am, 60km west of Aughleam near Belmullet.

Tom Blake, Director of the Irish National Seismic Network, said the region had never experienced an earthquake of this size before.

link www.irishtimes.com...

reply to post by TrueAmerican


I'm not sure whether this explains any changes in USGS performance, but for a few years they were carefully tuning their magnitude and moment estimates through comparisons of many kinds, and their emphasis is elsewhere at the moment - exploring plans to densify station coverage in the eastern US for monitoring nuclear power plants, getting their new web page running smoothly, tuning the Pager output, and other things.

They catch flak for devoting energy to non-US earthquakes at all - some consider mitigating the risk of earthquakes in the US to be the sole goal of the US Geological Survey, although most are broader minded than that. Their emphasis is definitely on global earthquakes that cause a lot of destruction as opposed to ones in remote places with little impact, and some in the USGS consider magnitude a secondary and expendable measurement, with the pattern of intensity of shaking primary, and the pattern of damage foremost.

Originally posted by megabogie
Puterman, Did you get to experience your first earthquake?!?
Hope all is well

ETA: I'm getting a little nervous...it's been about 3 hours since the quake off Ireland and no word from Puterman. Will take this as he is doing his real job and doesn't have time to report in

edit on 6-6-2012 by megabogie because: apprehension

I thought he was retired. Hope he felt it though.

Lots of small quakes in the UK at the moment. Kind of why I asked earlier if he monitored the smaller ones.

reply to post by megabogie


Never felt a thing! I was sat at my desk so I am sure I would have felt it. Neither of us did however. I have been out all day today from about 09:15 (08:15 UTC) so I would not have missed it. Actually I have just been discussing it with herself. We heard it because about that time we both said what was that when we heard, not felt, a low rumble. Never thought anything of it at the time as we have aircraft over us all day. Thing is that this was short - not like aircraft noise. Yup I think I can say we heard it.

Of course there is little doubt that the quake was caused by gas drilling since it is right in the middle of the Shell field that the Irish government kindly gave away lock stock and barrel.

I shall have to frame this one!



reply to post by Tykonos

I thought he was retired.

Not yet. Just not got any work as I am too old to employ but 2 years away from retirement.

reply to post by JohnVidale

and some in the USGS consider magnitude a secondary and expendable measurement, with the pattern of intensity of shaking primary, and the pattern of damage foremost.

Whilst those of us who understand would appreciate that point of view it would behove the USGS to realise that most people who see their data do NOT understand and large discrepancies such as this give rise to the general feeling that the USGS is covering something up or incompetent or both. You know that is the feeling.

You John are fully aware of the importance of the public facing side of the business or you would not be on here, on facebook and have a PNSN blog. Irrespective of the rights and wrongs of anything, USGS should understand that they need to be SEEN to be doing it right and not a pack of numpties that cannot get anything right which is more and more the impression that is coming over.

I find it utterly astonishing that EMSC can pretty much get it right first time, as can Potsdam but USGS have the magnitudes going up and down with no seeming rhyme of reason.

Explain why they now have three tensors that are in excess of or at Mag 6.0 Mw for the last Japan quake yet they are sticking at 5.8 Mw. No one else agrees with them. Why are they doing it? Badness?

If USGS set themselves up as the primary source of earthquake information in the world, in combination with IRIS etc, and you cannot deny that this is the intention, then they should pay attention to what they are doing and have someone in charge who understands how to handle the general public.

I believe that you have a good feel for that John, so they need a front person like you who they can ask about how to handle public facing issues.

You see the public do not see magnitude a secondary and expendable measurement and it is about damn time that the USGS realised this.

Please pass this on to someone who matters in USGS before they become the laughing stock of the "public" world, whatever the boffins may think.

reply to post by PuterMan


Well, I think hearing a quake is probably more rare than feeling it so you officially have experienced an earthquake. I was curious if something had actually caused it ...thanks for the gas drilling info and for letting us know you're ok.

reply to post by PuterMan


The USGS, if I can guess the motivations, are concerned first with sending out rapid and accurate estimates of the impact of the earthquakes in the first few minutes and hours. Their audience is first the Federal, State, and local governments, and also the general public. They pull in information from probably close to a thousand stations, and have modeling capabilities far beyond most networks, and are working on rapid finite-fault determination methods that are not yet available anywhere in the world except by research projects completed days later. Rapid finite-fault methods are necessary to know what has happened in big events such as Tohoku or Sumatra, where a point source is not only inadequate but can be misleading.

The impact they are estimating is the dollar cost and fatality count, which are dastardly hard to compute without knowing the distribution of shaking in the near-field, which is almost never quickly available. The fraction of the public that is concerned with the exact magnitude of events days later is not so large. Even so, the Mw, MS, and ML estimates are often legitimately different by up to 0.5 or more, so all magnitudes need not end up uniform, particularly for deep earthquakes.

The USGS could do things differently, but the overlords they try to please are in Washington DC and state capitals, not out in the general public.

reply to post by megabogie


By the way a little bit of information.

The Northern and Central Slyne Basins are half-grabens of opposite polarity with the switch occurring across the Central Slyne Transfer, interpreted to be a splay of the Great Glen Fault. The Corrib Field is situated in the Northern Slyne Basin.

Wikipedia

I am actually not precisely sure how that quake fits in, but I am very interested to find out that the Corrib field is a splay of the Great Glen fault which AngelChemuel has such an interest in. It is the Southern part of this ancient fault that gives rise to the earthquakes in Northern Ireland.

Map of the Corrib Field

I know I said bang in the middle but it was sort of tongue in cheek. Now I have done an overlay and the quake was right on the edge of the basin. I would say this WAS connected to the drilling.

Mayo has experienced its first earthquake since records began.

An earthquake of 4 magnitude occurred at sea off the Belmullet coast just before 9am Irish time this morning.

Residents across Co Mayo reported hearing a loud noise, and experiencing tremors.

The Geological Survey of Ireland says the earthquake occurred about 80 or 90 kilometres west off Belmullet.

Brian McConnell of the Geological Survey of Ireland says there were geological reasons for this morning’s earthquake….

Source: Mid West Radio

geological reasons my backside................

Originally posted by JohnVidale
Their emphasis is definitely on global earthquakes that cause a lot of destruction as opposed to ones in remote places with little impact, and some in the USGS consider magnitude a secondary and expendable measurement, with the pattern of intensity of shaking primary, and the pattern of damage foremost.

As the front line authority on these very things for the US, and the agency upon which EMS depend for damage assessments and allocations of resources, I don't know that I'd want it any different. The priorities are probably, and necessarily, in the right place. The fact that a few ATSers can see some discrepancies here and there between reporting agency's output, is just a mere trivial artifact of misplaced, cherry picked priority from technicians who see this as a bigger problem than it really is. When the error is initially reporting a 5.2 as a 6.2 though, I think there is reason to demand better.

And to other countries such as Japan, where the JMA reports not only magnitudes, but intensity maps as well much faster (usually within 2-5 minutes), I question to what degree they care at all about what the USGS reports. Perspective and priority should weigh more in conversations around here, me thinks. Usually produces a broader understanding of each.

Originally posted by JohnVidale
reply to post by TrueAmerican

 

They catch flak for devoting energy to non-US earthquakes at all - some consider mitigating the risk of earthquakes in the US to be the sole goal of the US Geological Survey, although most are broader minded than that. Their emphasis is definitely on global earthquakes that cause a lot of destruction as opposed to ones in remote places with little impact, and some in the USGS consider magnitude a secondary and expendable measurement, with the pattern of intensity of shaking primary, and the pattern of damage foremost.

edit on 6-6-2012 by JohnVidale because: editing

I didn't think fault lines could read... dang, you'd think those foreign quakes would stay in their own country instead of spreading all over the globe! Seriously, a quake ANYWHERE can affect us here in the good ol' US of A, so of course they should pay attention to earthquakes outside the US!!!

And by the way, it is getting active out there, isn't it?

My main gripe about USGS, is that as Americans tend to do, they promote themselves as the biggest/bestest/fastest/ whatever 'estest you want to name, seismic service in the World, so they should try and live up to those expectations. Initial accuracy is their weak point, yet that is the most important thing.

When I started following earthquakes (after a couple of 6's near me, in 2005 an 2006) I only followed Geonet.
Later in that year when there was a 7.9 Mag up near Tonga on May3 2006, that we felt here 2500km away, there was a Tsunami alert for NZ and I found the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center and hense USGS.
It took 16 minutes for the Tsunami Alert to be issued, probably too late for Tonga, but for us here accurate fast information on the size of the quake was/is critical. On the page I wrote at the time its says USGS had 8.0mb which is huge, and probably contributed to a sense of panic here. Even back then the magnitude types used were confusing, it ended up being a 7.1mb, which doesn't sound so bad, or a 8.0Mw, depending on what page you read on the USGS report.

Thats just one example, where the release to the public created the wrong impression, and set the tone for the reaction
from the summary page;

The following is a release by the United States Geological Survey, National Earthquake Information Center: A great earthquake occurred about 160 km (100 miles) NE of NUKU'ALOFA, Tonga at 9:26 AM MDT, May 3, 2006 (May 04 at 4:26 AM local time in Tonga). The magnitude and location may be revised when additional data and further analysis results are available.

Emphasis mine

Great? but it really was a Major (at 7.1mb/8.0Mw) the difference is Great = Panic, Major= Concern

The biggest problem I see is the MSM go straight to USGS and use their information, then report that without checking elsewhere.
At the end of the day I find the local network closest to the actual quake is likely the most accurate, they know their own land.



ETA: this thing about getting FAST automatic reading out seems not to be working very well, as can be seen by the Geonet Rapid programme, set up with the help of Geofon, and the same with the Vanuatu setup.
When there is a big quake here in NZ at night, GNS get a experienced seismolgist to get his/her ass out of bed and take a look at the seismograph at home on the computer, seems to work well, its hard to beat a system with someone with a bit of nowt to be in charge, instead of a bunch of accountants.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

reply to post by JohnVidale

The USGS could do things differently, but the overlords they try to please are in Washington DC and state capitals, not out in the general public.

Oh don't worry I understand that, but you seem to be missing the point. IF you promulgate this material on the web for the obvious use of the public, then one should be mindful of the effects of erroneous information as far as the public is concerned.

If all one is doing, or rather I should say, if the primary concern is PAGER notification there is actually no need to place any of this on the open accessible web at all. By placing it on the accessible web it is inviting criticism if it is not up to scratch. You cannot say that the web is to inform the affected public since most people in the population at large will not only not have a feed but will not have a browser notification system and quite likely will not be logged into a browser 24/7. However it is quite possible that many will have a feed for iPhones etc and that does not actually require promulgation on the web. Many more will be 'logged in' to the TV much more frequently.

They could perfectly well please the overlords in the State capitals, and provide warning facilities, without maintaining a service on the web BUT because they do maintain a service on the web it should be right.

reply to post by SpaceJockey1

Thats OK, I wanted to try that Utsu KML conversion thing for a while, needed the question to be asked
Too bad it ends in 2002.

Re the snow, yeah seen it on TV last night, quite a dump, just heard on the radio its -9C down there this morning , brrrrrrrrrrr
I was a big fan of Global Warming myself, its about 5 degrees to chilly here to be Paradise
Climate Change sux where I am, means more rain.

reply to post by muzzy


mb, the short period P wave magnitude, has no relevance for tsunami power, it is the moment that matters.

7.9 vs 8.0 is not a significant difference. By the time one has approximated that the source of a large earthquake is really a point rather than a surface, or more generally, several distorted surfaces, one shouldn't quibble about 0.1 or 0.2 differences in magnitude. Small changes in dip angles or depths or source-velocity structure also tweak magnitude estimates.

Further, it is NOAA rather than the USGS that issues American tsunami warnings, nowadays relying on Kanamori's w-phase near-field magnitudes.

Puterman,


Let's get something straight. I never accused you of being with the CIA. You need to take me literally. I said,

"There's been talk of you being with the CIA."

Therefore, I did not say you were CIA.

Now that we have our stories straight, of course it was me that brought up the topic of you and the CIA in the first place. Many, many months ago. And it was a hypothetical question to prove a point. I said, "How do I know you're not with the CIA?"

I even told you at the time I didn't worry about wether you were or were not CIA because there's no way to prove it. Least not by me. Heck, with today's demographics and political tensions, you could be Chiense for all I know.

No. I should stop right here before people get the wrong idea. People don't understand sarcasm. And I can prove it because I did an experiment. My Church of Carlin proved reading is a skill which is in short supply. I know Puterman is Welsh. This is an absolute so you need not wonder any further. I know because I'm descended from the Welsh. That's all the proof you need.

Oh wait.

Why is the USGS so gungho?

This one is a no brainer. Because the United States of America wants to rule the world. It's all about the military.

You don't want your ship caught in port when a tsunami hits. The US is the Japanese military. Let's face it. The US has based and ports all around the whole big globe. They need to know what's going on. They "need to know' now. It is all about being the bestest like Muzzy says. In the old days of empire, the British Geological Survey rule the world. Spies were botonists sailing around on funny named vessels all over the place. Geologist came back to the throne and told them all where the booties could be found. It's all about treasure boys. It's all about pirates and profiteers and gold. Nothing has changed just the boss. Like the WHO sang. same as the old boss.

Sorry.

It's this oil thing. If you are a pedestrian you'lll understand.

These guys from the USGS run seminars telling where the investors should be putting their money. South Dakota anyone. Don't like that. How's Montana for ya?

Edit. Hey Chesepeake Oil and Gas has hit a big gusher. In Texas and Oklahoma. That's another big strike ontop of all the other strikes they've had. If you like watching earthquakes, you should be able to easliy figure out where all the big quakes will be in the future. When I move in a few month into the danger zone. I'm going to make myself a seismogram. Cool . Think positive I rarely say because I'm depressive and an arse. I hope you know i'm still trying to be not too serious. That Congo quake was cool cause i was thinking about the volcanoes there.

shut up roboin


www.bloomberg.com...

From the point of view of the end user / member of the public.

If the USGS can not get the simple magnitude right, and every one else can, then what faith can I have that they will get anything more complex right. Everyone else manages the feat. USGS seem to be crippled.

In fact they act just like monolithic bureaucrats. Put the scientists back in charge.

I know this is not fair, but it is the perception of some of the public. It is very typical of the US needing bureaucrats to spend the huge amount of money thrown at them to pay the bureaucrats outlandish salaries.

The Best in The World, hardly, can't even get the magnitude right, (Snicker)

P

reply to post by PuterMan


Love how the government spokesmen always want to point out that an unusual quake in area being drilled/fracked/intruded upon for it's money-making resources was due to "geological reasons".

We've heard it over and over here in Ohio pertaining to all the quakes in overly fracked Youngstown until a USGS geophysicist finally said the truth:

"To the extent that our nation wants to become independent of meeting its energy needs in the coming years, the increased earthquakes are going to go along with that," said Art McGarr, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, Calif. "The problems are only going to grow in the future."

"It's reasonably clear that these Youngstown earthquakes are being caused by the disposal well activities," McGarr said. "The earthquakes started in March of last year. That's about the same period that the major injection activities started."

So let's convince the public these man made quakes are for their own good...it will make us independent afterall, and they'll learn to live with the shaking.

Sorry, I got a little Robinesque, I mean Blairish, there.

link:www.msnbc.msn.com...

Originally posted by JohnVidale
reply to post by muzzy

 

mb, the short period P wave magnitude, has no relevance for tsunami power, it is the moment that matters.

Further, it is NOAA rather than the USGS that issues American tsunami warnings, nowadays relying on Kanamori's w-phase near-field magnitudes.

Thanks for explaining the mb relevance, that explains a LOT.
So NOAA calculate their own magnitudes?, even today?
I used NOAA quite a bit when compiling my maps pre 1970's, as USGS wasn't about then, but didn't after that date, hmmmmmmmm another source for 7+ events.
Thanks

reply to post by ericblair4891


Audoban was NOT a Spy!,,
hell of a Botonist ,though,,