Quake Watch 2012

Magnitude mb 5.8

Region KURIL ISLANDS

Date time 2012-03-12 12:32:47.0 UTC

Location 45.33 N ; 147.67 E Depth 118 km

Distances 564 km NE Sapporo (pop 1,883,027 ; local time 21:32:47.0 2012-03-12) 344 km NE Kitami (pop 113,137 ; local time 21:32:47.0 2012-03-12) 275 km NE Shibetsu (pop 21,744 ; local time 21:32:47.0 2012-03-12) 20 km NW Kurilsk (pop 2,185 ; local time 23:32:47.0 2012-03-12)

source(www.emsc-csem.org...

Magnitude mb 4.2
Region HINDU KUSH REGION, AFGHANISTAN
Date time 2012-03-12 14:05:21.6 UTC
Location 36.89 N ; 73.19 E
Depth 54 km
Distances 353 km NE Peshawar (pop 1,218,773 ; local time 19:05:21.6 2012-03-12)
246 km N Mingaora (pop 227,331 ; local time 19:05:21.6 2012-03-12)
145 km NW Hunza (pop 15,607 ; local time 19:05:21.6 2012-03-12)
40 km E Qal'eh-ye panjeh (pop 9,152 ; local time 18:35:21.6 2012-03-12)

EMSC

Poorly constrained

Magnitude 3.0

Date-Time Monday, March 12, 2012 at 16:30:09 UTC Monday, March 12, 2012 at 09:30:09 AM at epicenter Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location 38.770°N, 122.716°W

Depth 1 km (~0.6 mile)

Region NORTHERN CALIFORNIA

Distances 2 km (1 miles) WSW (255°) from Anderson Springs, CA 7 km (4 miles) S (176°) from Cobb, CA 8 km (5 miles) ESE (112°) from The Geysers, CA 36 km (22 miles) N (358°) from Santa Rosa, CA 111 km (69 miles) WNW (283°) from Sacramento, CA

Location Uncertainty horizontal +/- 0.1 km (0.1 miles); depth +/- 0.3 km (0.2 miles)

Parameters Nph= 65, Dmin=2 km, Rmss=0.1 sec, Gp= 68°, M-type=local magnitude (ML), Version=3

source(earthquake.usgs.gov...

reply to post by PuterMan


Sure people can believe what they want, but like you say you can't spent your life trembling i anticipation of a big quake.
I note in that page you linked to they say;

NOTE; The 4.0 earthquake that hit the Berkeley area on March 5, may be a foreshock for today's quake.

Hmm, is there any evidence that Mag 5-7 quakes are preceded by Mag 4 quakes in California.?
I don't think so.
My observations are that the bigger quakes come out of the blue, when things are quiet, without warning.

There are exceptions of course, particularly in volcanic areas.

Even if you could predict quakes,what would be the use of it?, evacuate 100,000+ people? 500-1000km away, just not practical. All you can do is have emergency supplies at hand and ride it out.

Even most Christchurch people have stayed on for the 9,785 aftershocks in the last 18 months since the Sept 7.1

Ijen volcano (East Java, Indonesia): eruption warning due to increased seismic and degassing activity

Seismic activity has been rising as well. Since 22 Feb, a near contiuous tremor signal has been being recorded. In the interval 22-31 Feb, there were 52 harmonic tremor periods lasting up to 20 minutes, as well as 17 2 low-frequency earthquakes, 38 mostly shallow volcanic quakes.

This number increased to 306 tremor episodes lasting up to 25 minutes, 27 low frequency, and 125 mostly shallow volcanic earthquakes during the latest observation period between 1-10 March.

source(www.volcanodiscovery.com... ing-activity.html

That's the only one that matter to me.

earthquake.usgs.gov...

Damn close, but no jackpot yet!
My turn I guess for the little fear mongering.

Originally posted by Nidwin
That's the only one that matter to me.

earthquake.usgs.gov...

Damn close, but no jackpot yet!
My turn I guess for the little fear mongering.

Well if there's one thing that'll make me nervous, it's a 4.4 right on the caldera rim of the most dangerous volcano on earth.

Yeah. Toba. Go check it out. Sleep my dear, sleep. !

Can you imagine the tremor amplitude of THAT beast going off??? Jesus, I wouldn't be surprised if it maintained or exceeded solid 6 magnitude equivalent. PSI would probably quit working, way before anyone....

Ok, I am shutting it now.

reply to post by TrueAmerican


FWIW,

I just received by email, news of Timothy Snodgrass and Susan OMarra both having had dreams very recently of an 8.0 or higher quake hitting California. No timeline given but they seem to be convinced that it' snot far off.

One was convinced that the 7.1 in Vanuatu was a signal that the California quake was very close. He noted that there were other such in that area but felt in his spirit that this last one was more prophetically significant for some reason.

There have been a surprising number of Christian prophetic sources writing about a looming large California quake on the unspecified near horizon. Precisely what it means remainst to be seen. However, folks living in such areas in California OUGHT TO ALREADY BE PREPARED with food and water.

Personally, I'd move to higher ground if I wasn't already living on higher ground in California. Too late is . . . toooooo late.

Originally posted by BO XIAN
reply to post by TrueAmerican

 

FWIW,

I just received by email, news of Timothy Snodgrass and Susan OMarra both having had dreams very recently of an 8.0 or higher quake hitting California. No timeline given but they seem to be convinced that it' snot far off.

One was convinced that the 7.1 in Vanuatu was a signal that the California quake was very close. He noted that there were other such in that area but felt in his spirit that this last one was more prophetically significant for some reason.

There have been a surprising number of Christian prophetic sources writing about a looming large California quake on the unspecified near horizon. Precisely what it means remainst to be seen. However, folks living in such areas in California OUGHT TO ALREADY BE PREPARED with food and water.

Personally, I'd move to higher ground if I wasn't already living on higher ground in California. Too late is . . . toooooo late.

With all due respect, this is not a prediction forum....ugh. If I had a penny for every prediction made.

To clarify, not a dream prediction forum. Or psychic forum. Make predictions based on facts, not dreams.

reply to post by Nidwin


Yes and No! That was way too deep. It was a subduction quake not volcanic. When you get a 4+ at 6km then you are getting a little closer to the jackpot I feel.

reply to post by BO XIAN

I just received by email, news of Timothy Snodgrass and Susan OMarra both having had dreams very recently of an 8.0 or higher quake hitting California. No timeline given but they seem to be convinced that it' snot far off.

Dear BO, I know that you are a very religious person and do not wish to deny you the right to profess your beliefs but I do have to agree with amongus that perhaps Quake Watch is not the place for Christian prophetic uttering.

The big problem here is that it would be impossible to separate a God given dream and a general feeling that caused the dream as so many people think that there will be a 'big one' in California soon.

From California up to Vancouver Island is a complicated bit of joints and stresses and whilst Cascadia has evidence of a Mag 9.0 there is no such evidence in California.

Now that is not to say that it won't happen, but the geology of California does not lend itself to that magnitude of earthquake which so far at least have been exclusive to subduction zones - think Chile 1960, 2010, Banda 2004, Japan 2011 etc.

You (folks) might enjoy this 'timeline' of California earthquakes from 1865 to 2010.

Earthquakes in California have been recorded since at least 1769, when an estimated magnitude 6.0 earthquake struck in the Los Angeles Basin. Since the mid-1800s, quakes have been much more systematically logged. This map shows the locations and magnitudes of 189 earthquakes that registered at least 5.0 in California or just offshore since 1865.

Unfortunately the list of California earthquakes linked on the site is a broken link but this one should do the trick.

So basically a mag 7.9 is the largest historical quake. There is no evidence to suggest larger quakes and as I said the geology does not lend itself to this so predictions or dreams of mag 8.5 or 9 earthquakes have to be very suspect at best.

I am not belittling the earthquake risk in California. A mag 7.9 would be very serious indeed. You can read here the nature of the damage and deaths from the larger California quakes.


Addendum:

One was convinced that the 7.1 in Vanuatu was a signal

Just to note that the quake was (subsequently) a Magnitude 6.7.


Way back on the 6th May 2011 in this post I stated....



You can see from the above why I was reasonably confident in saying that - and it was correct.

Yeah, but that's a subduction quake 175 km under what has to be one of the largest magma chambers ever, and which they are not sure of just how deep that rabbit hole goes.

The results show a low-velocity body coincident with the Lake Toba caldera, representing the magma chamber under the volcano. The chamber is observed to have a complex 3-D geometry, with at least two separate sub-chambers underlying the caldera. Other results include a deep low velocity body, possibly another magma chamber, south west of the lake with an upper limit of ∼7 km depth. The maximum depth to which this body reaches could not be resolved. The Sumatra Fault marks a velocity contrast, but only down to depths not greater than 5 km. The reliability of the results was further confirmed by checkerboard recovery tests.

www.agu.org...

Ambient noise tomography. In other words, microseisms. Pretty cool how they do that though. But it does have its limitations.

Bottom line is any quake near there no matter how deep is worthy of notice. And especially if they are followed by others sooner rather than later...

reply to post by TrueAmerican

Bottom line is any quake near there no matter how deep is worthy of notice.

Absolutely. No argument there.

I was just observing that at that depth it is not quite as scary as shallower. When you consider the massive rise of the caldera floor since the last event (450m ? ) it makes many others, including Old Yellow pale rather.

Originally posted by PuterMan
I was just observing that at that depth it is not quite as scary as shallower. When you consider the massive rise of the caldera floor since the last event (450m ?

) it makes many others, including Old Yellow pale rather.

When it comes to a volcano, especially the big daddy, I don't know that assigning any degree of better or worse, deep or shallow, is a good idea. I could argue that because that quake was so deep right under the thing, that deeper, and perhaps scarier, processes may be brewing. And to lessen the importance of shallow quakes in a caldera context, one need look no further than Old Yellow to see that in big calderas, shallow quakes may not be the thing to watch out for at all. They happen, even in swarms, all the time. And no eruption. So maybe the deeper ones have more weight, and should bear more scrutiny when they are directly under supermonsters.

Unnoticed things very soon become noticeable.

Magnitude 4.1

Date-Time Tuesday, March 13, 2012 at 10:07:03 UTC Tuesday, March 13, 2012 at 02:07:03 AM at epicenter Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location 42.152°N, 126.688°W Depth 10.3 km (6.4 miles)

Region OFF THE COAST OF OREGON

Distances 199 km (123 miles) W of Brookings, Oregon 210 km (130 miles) WNW of Crescent City, California 243 km (150 miles) WSW of Coos Bay, Oregon 428 km (265 miles) SW of SALEM, Oregon

Location Uncertainty horizontal +/- 17.5 km (10.9 miles); depth +/- 2.8 km (1.7 miles)

Parameters NST= 86, Nph= 87, Dmin=203.7 km, Rmss=0.97 sec, Gp=198°, M-type=body wave magnitude (Mb), Version=7

source(earthquake.usgs.gov...

Type: Earthquake 25 minutes ago Magnitude: 1.5 DateTime: Tuesday March 13 2012, 10:59:48 UTC Region: Greater Los Angeles area, California Depth: 1.8 km Source: USGS Feed

source(quakes.globalincidentmap.com...

2012-03-13 10:59:36.1 13min ago 38.59 N 21.71 E 10 3.6 GREECE

2012-03-13 10:44:53.0 28min ago 35.40 N 31.42 E 40 4.5 CYPRUS REGION

source(www.emsc-csem.org...

reply to post by amongus


True enough.

When I think of quakes, I first think of this thread.

And, I think that the greatest number of folks interersted in whatever related to quakes are on this thread.

Only later did I realize that I could have posted it on the other thread and did so.

Perhaps that's what scroll & page down buttons are for.

reply to post by PuterMan


Roger that.

I understand.

You may read my post just above.

This is thought of first as my 'quake home' on ATS and for the web, really . . . other than and in many respects more important than usgs, to me. So I naturally think of it first when I want to share anything about quakes.

I'll try and remember to keep the distinction straight next time and file posts accordingly between the two threads.

No offense intended.

I understand what you are saying about the mechanics of California . . . as well as this layman can understand such.

However, personally, I don't think any mortals have more than a fraction of such things figured out entirely accurately.

I think the whole business is likely to have plenty of surprises ahead for even the wisest geologist.

And, I did edit a lot of his professional English papers for Taiwan's best geologist. So I'm not totally ignorant about it all. I just FEEL that way.

Thx thx.

Not listed by USGS

Reference Number 3673299
Universal Time March 13 2012 at 2:11
NZ Daylight Time Tuesday, March 13 2012 at 3:11 pm
Latitude, Longitude 38.60°S, 176.47°E
Focal Depth 100 km
Richter magnitude 4.9ML (actually 4.88ML)
Region Bay of Plenty
Location
20 km south-east of Reporoa
30 km south-west of Murupara
40 km east of Taupo
250 km south-east of Auckland

www.geonet.org.nz...

Listed by USGS

12 MAR 2012 ( 72)
ot = 05:09:55.52 +/- 1.44 SOUTHERN IRAN
lat = 27.218 +/- 12.3
lon = 54.666 +/- 11.9 MAGNITUDE 4.7 (mb) (4.0ML)
dep = 20.3 +/- 6.6

61 km (38 miles) SSE of Lar, Iran (pop 54,000)
76 km (47 miles) NNW of Bandar-e Lengeh, Iran (pop 25,000)
160 km (99 miles) W of Bandar `Abbas, Iran (pop 379,000)
986 km (612 miles) SSE of TEHRAN, Iran

neic.usgs.gov...

reply to post by JohnVidale

John, thank you for your response and my apologies for taking so long to reply in turn.

So it seems, then, that at best the cluster model is what the late Sam Goldwyn would have called "a definite maybe". I must admit that just looking at it casually -- with the graphical representations of the quake times and so forth -- it looks like a fair idea, but as you've point out, there are problems with it from at least a statistical standpoint.

I wonder how far back it's possible to go with the sort of research that Goldfinger et al have been doing? I mean the research derived the the real kneeling-in-the-mud-and digging-for evidence kind of information gathering? Could they get some kind of data that reliably goes back ten times as far and (maybe) covers a proportionately greater number of major quake events?

I'm asking this because while having data covering a good ten millennia is impressive, it's a comparitive eyeblink in the region's seismic history and so trying to derive a reasonable model (with some statistical reliability) is going to be hard to do.

On another point, you wrote:

The layering within each turbidites had been taken to indicate the time history of shaking WITHIN each great earthquake, which is nearly certainly a misinterpretation. Each turbidite site should be sensitive to only a small part of the overall rupture of the Cascadia margin.

As I understand it, you're saying that within each defined turbidite layer (or stratum?), there are lesser layers that have been taken to represent shaking thoughout the time period of an entire great quake event, whereas it is more likely that they do not due to localization factors. Have I understood correctly? If not then could you please elaborate a little.

I appreciate the time you've taken over this. As these turbidites have been a major factor in determining older seismic events in the region it's worth trying to understand the interpretations of them.

Just to conclude and on a different but related tack: in reference to the Jan 26, 1700 event, we're aware that dendrochronologists were able to confirm when many of the "ghost forest" trees in the coastal region there actually died due to flooding by sea water, so they knew it was before the start of the growing season in 1700. And then the orphan tsunami report was found and so on. (Remarkable work, that!)

Okay, so the trees played a very significant role and that got me wondering: have any studies been done to examine trees in the region (both dead and very old, living trees) for evidence of micro-fracturing in the lower trunk sections that could indicate violent motion that would not be attributable to wind forces?

Now, this is just a hypothesis of mine and I'm no botanist, but it seems to me that as trees are "designed" to flex better in the upper sections, as that is where the strongest lateral forces normally act upon them (via wind), then if they were powerfully shaken from the ground upwards then some fracturing might be different from what would be expected during a storm. Because the dynamics in play are somewhat different, I feel.

I'm asking because if any such studies have been done then it might be possible to cross-reference them and try to determine theoretical magnitude variations in different parts of the Cascadia region, say from up on Van Island and on down through WA to OR and maybe even into Nth CA.

By "magnitude variations" I mean something like the localized "Shindo" value as used in Japan, rather than mag at epicentre (which could be a long way off in some cases anyway).

It could also be useful in helping to identify some other events a little further afield, perhaps, rather than just the Cascadia region. I'm thinking that with the giant redwoods, for example, it might be possible to trace at least 1,000 years and if there is such a micro-fracture quake effect, they could tell us quite a lot. (Assuming there were quake in redwood country.)

Anyway, just wondering. I'll leave it there. Many thanks.

Mike