Quake Watch 2012

WOW. Lots of red on the USGS site today. I wonder if a lot of magnets fell off of refrigerators last night Why did the Japanese want to know about magnets falling off of refrigerators anyway, does anyone know what they are looking at?

Anyone notice how far south that eq was from were we normally get them at. Wonder if this could be the start of new activity in a different area than were we are used to getting them?

Magnitude 6.3 - OFF THE WEST COAST OF BAJA CALIFORNIA
Historic Seismicity
with one aftershock at 4.7

reply to post by lurksoften

Looks to me like the Cortez (or Cortes) Banks Faults area.
Here is some info on seismicity in the area I believe.
Link

reply to post by lurksoften


Yeah, someone just posted about a weird volcano being found it that area, so I wonder if that had anything to do with the quake?

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Originally posted by lurksoften
Anyone notice how far south that eq was from were we normally get them at. Wonder if this could be the start of new activity in a different area than were we are used to getting them?

Its either an isolated rare event or its the beginning of the end
No eq history in that spot post 1900
usgs eq history maps
6 days till the 21st Dec (NZ Time)

Christchurch NZ had very little history until 2010
Activity seems to move about over time, back in the BC days it was very active in the Eastern Mediteranean, Syria, Palestine etc, now its pretty quiet there.

Your search parameters are:
catalog=ANSS
start_time=1900/01/01,00:00:00
end_time=2012/12/15,00:00:00
minimum_magnitude=1.0
maximum_magnitude=10
event_type=E
delta=0 km to 120 km from (31.213,-119.560)
interactive map result here
screenshot

the signature waves sure changed shape during the journey across the Pacific
IU/SLBS, Sierra la Laguna Baja California Sur, Mexico vs IU/SNZO, South Karori, New Zealand

reply to post by chiefsmom

I doubt it, that volcano is 1338km away

reply to post by muzzy

A little bit concerned because its so close to home.

Concerned If the recent activity in the area off of California should produce a larger event, that might generate a tsunami. I found this link to that shows areas that will be inundated.

Inundation_Map

Originally posted by muzzy
reply to post by chiefsmom

 

I doubt it, that volcano is 1338km away

mwaa....if you zoom in the epicenter on google earth you find in the ZZO an volcano with an crater of 750 mtr diameter on the bottem of ocean... distance 17.5 km...

I see a big quake off america 6.3 & 4.7 3.5
but I dont find it in the news?
are they keeping it quiet?
so you yanks dont see the bus coming??

you even get a Big story in the news to keep you buzzy!

I see a big quake off america 6.3 & 4.7 3.5
but I dont find it in the news?
are they keeping it quiet?
so you yanks dont see the bus coming??

you even get a Big story in the news to keep you buzzy!

Correction on my previous post, can't edit as the 4 hour window has expired.
Cortes Banks are approximately 85 miles away from the epicenter.

reply to post by ressiv

maybe there is, but its not the erupting volcano that is mentioned in the article on the link posted, its the Alarcón Rise, a 31-mile-long (50 kilometer) spreading center at the mouth of the Gulf of California that is talked about.

look at the maps on the article
thecelestialconvergence.blogspot.co.nz...

intersting how on the GE and GMaps Satellite view just south of todays quake there is a track about 20km wide with quite precise seafloor detail, obviously a research ship scanned the floor, its quite bumpy. The track leads to Hawaii.

Russians gave that W of Baja a 6.5Ms and 6.5mb

usgs being tight with their magnitudes again today, only working in mb for some quakes and Mw for others, causes confusion
Fiji 2012 December 14 16:52:38 UTC
emsc have 5.8Mw
usgs and ras have 5.3mb
gfz MTS 5.8Mw
you decide
I'd call it a 5.8 for sure

Sorry,but limited on time when I came across this.

lobs of solidified magma may have helped control the direction of energy from the 2011 Virginia earthquake, according to early results from an airborne geologic survey conducted in July 2012. "If you look to the northeast [from the epicenter], you see that the structures are rather continuous," said Anji Shah, a U.S. Geological Survey research geophysicist and lead scientist for the study. "Whereas if you look to the southwest, you quickly run into a pluton (the solidified magma), so you have an interface of different rock types, which might make the energy a lot less efficient in that direction," she told OurAmazingPlanet. The strongest energy from the Virginia earthquake appeared channeled toward the northeast, in the direction of Washington, D.C., and dissipated to the south, according to the USGS's shake maps. A chunky pluton also sits to the west of the epicenter. A pluton is an underground mass of cooled magma, or igneous rock, that can range in size from a few miles to tens of miles (a couple kilometers to tens of kilometers) in diameter.

www.huffingtonpost.com...

Throwing this out there in the interests of EQ's.

USGS 5.9 Aleutian Islands......showing 3 with one showing NULL

Originally posted by piequal3because14
....until today I didn't knew that this thread can be so interesting and useful.

and it is.

Many things to learn from all of you about these earthly phenomena that are earthquakes.

I hope I will understand better about earthquakes by reading all the posts in this thread if and when time will be allowed.

Thank you for this thread.

We, the collective, thank you for your thanks. Although nominally this is 'my' thread I can hardly call it that as many make excellent contributions.

The Quake Watch Collective, of which I am 1 of Many (very imprecise for a Borg) usually manage to get info out on quakes and other things of interest before anyone else. There must be dozens out there poised over the USGS and other listings, screen scraper in hand, just waiting!

You will also get here updates to earthquakes magnitudes and additionally a wide range of sources that you will not find all in one place elsewhere.

Here is an update:

The Vanuatu earthquake Mag 6.4 on Dec 02 has been dowbgraded to 6.1 by USGS.

Have to say I am a little surprised by that one as I had not earmarked it for a downgrade. Must be slipping!

Originally posted by rickymouse
WOW. Lots of red on the USGS site today. I wonder if a lot of magnets fell off of refrigerators last night

Why did the Japanese want to know about magnets falling off of refrigerators anyway, does anyone know what they are looking at?

Re the magnets, since fridge magnets are fairly weak - about the strength of the magnetic field of the sun by the way - they may be looking for demagnetisation of the magnet due to changes in earth's even weaker magnetic field.

The Sun is a big magnet.

During solar minimum the Sun's magnetic field, like Earth's, resembles that of an iron bar magnet, with great closed loops near the equator and open field lines near the poles. Scientists call such a field a "dipole." The Sun's dipolar field is about as strong as a refrigerator magnet, or 50 gauss. Earth's magnetic field is 100 times weaker.

Source: Spaceweather.com

reply to post by muzzy


That SNZO webicorder plot looks like it was two quakes.

It has the characteristic phasing that I once described on this thread somewhere. (It is like a binaural beat)

Originally posted by muzzy
Russians gave that W of Baja a 6.5Ms and 6.5mb

usgs being tight with their magnitudes again today, only working in mb for some quakes and Mw for others, causes confusion
Fiji 2012 December 14 16:52:38 UTC
emsc have 5.8Mw
usgs and ras have 5.3mb
gfz MTS 5.8Mw
you decide
I'd call it a 5.8 for sure

edit on 14-12-2012 by muzzy because: (no reason given)

5.3 mb according to the formula you dug up is 5.66 Mw (call that 5.7 rounded) so not so far out really given how imprecise earthquake magnitudes are.

I totally agree about the use of different scales all the time just for inconsistency.

Wait and see if the Near Islands 5.9 gets lifted to a Mag 6+ (6.0?)

2012-12-15 04:49:30, 52.344, 173.964, 5.9, 29.9, Nr. Isls. [M ap]

reply to post by PuterMan

Re the magnets, since fridge magnets are fairly weak - about the strength of the magnetic field of the sun by the way - they may be looking for demagnetisation of the magnet due to changes in earth's even weaker magnetic field.

Actually a refrigerator magnet is quite a bit stronger than the magnetic field of the Earth, which in turn is about 1,000 times stronger than the magnetic field of the Sun by the time it gets to Earth.

I think it's more likely to be a bit of crude seismography. It'll take a certain degree of movement to knock a fridge magnet loose.

en.wikipedia.org...