Quake Watch 2014

a reply to: Olivine

Yup USGS 5.6 mb. GFZ STILL at 6.9!!

I'm slowly learning about earthquakes thanks to this site but can I ask a simple question. Is it best for an earthquake region to have a lot of medium size quakes over time. Does this ease pressure along the fault lines if pressure is released slowly and often

Tsunami warning for PNG.

An earthquake struck late Saturday off Papua New Guinea's eastern coast with a preliminary magnitude of 7.5, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

The quake struck at 11:27 p.m. (9:27 a.m. ET) and occurred at a depth of 19 miles (32 km), the USGS said.

It was centered 47 miles (75 km) southwest of Panguna, Papua New Guinea.

After the quake, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a tsunami warning for Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.

Saturday's incident is the latest in a series of seismic events in the region over the week. They began with magnitude-7.1 and magnitude-6.5 earthquakes on April 11, just to the northeast and southeast, respectively.

a reply to: PuterMan
Now their software has upgraded it to a mag 7.0--still listed as automatic? GFZ

F-E Region: Solomon Islands
Time: 2014-04-19 13:47:53.3 UTC
Magnitude: 7.0
Epicenter: 154.68°E 7.09°S
Depth: 85 km
Status: A - automatic

I did a timeseries build through IRIS, from 13:20 to 14:20 UTC.

ima ge source
This link is for au dio of the data shown in the image above.
You can hear the mag 5.2 foreshock, the mainshock, and within the rumbling, an aftershock.
(The audio link will ask to "save as" on your computer. Once saved, just open the .wav file with your preferred media player software. )

a reply to: ThePeaceMaker

It sounds a reasonable theory but unfortunately it does not actually work like that.

The problem is that it takes many people a while to get their heads round the logarithmic nature of the numbers of earthquakes.

A magnitude 6 earthquake is ~32 times stronger then a magnitude 5 earthquake, in other words you would need to have 32 mag 5 quakes to equal one mag 6. You would have to have 1000 mag 5 quakes to equal one single mag 7, or 31,623 mag 5 quakes to equal a magnitude 8.

2 x mag 5 is not a mag 10! (thank goodness)

So whilst there is a possibility that a large numbers of smaller quakes could release some strain the chances are that it will have very little effect in an area that is capable of say a mag 8.

originally posted by: Olivine
a reply to: PuterMan
Now their software has upgraded it to a mag 7.0--still listed as automatic? GFZ

F-E Region: Solomon Islands
Time: 2014-04-19 13:47:53.3 UTC
Magnitude: 7.0
Epicenter: 154.68°E 7.09°S
Depth: 85 km
Status: A - automatic

Ah, I have it. With German efficiency they are trying to fool Mama Earth into thinking She has done enough and it is time for a rest.

a reply to: Olivine

PUTERMAN MASTER QUAKE JOCKY:

Nearly the most active month since modern records began.

Hmmmmm

Will be interesting to see how next month goes . . .

I assume you have an expectation about what happens next?

There's some AK activity in an area I don't recall seeing anything from very often: 4.6 22km NE of Noatak, Alaska 2014-04-19 11:31:43 UTC 35.8 km 4.6 37km NE of Noatak, Alaska 2014-04-19 11:31:06 UTC 7.7 km 4.7 31km NE of Noatak, Alaska 2014-04-19 08:49:01 UTC 17.5 km 2.8 19km ENE of Noatak, Alaska 2014-04-18 23:32:00 UTC 13.2 km 3.0 28km NE of Noatak, Alaska 2014-04-18 22:52:17 UTC 9.9 km 3.4 28km ENE of Noatak, Alaska 2014-04-18 22:30:32 UTC 2.9 km 2.7 7km ENE of Noatak, Alaska 2014-04-18 21:46:54 UTC 5.9 km 4.1 34km NE of Noatak, Alaska 2014-04-18 21:38:50 UTC 15.9 km 3.7 27km ENE of Noatak, Alaska 2014-04-18 20:34:52 UTC 3.6 km 3.7 25km NE of Noatak, Alaska 2014-04-18 20:28:24 UTC 13.7 km 2.7 15km ENE of Noatak, Alaska 2014-04-18 19:38:11 UTC 8.7 km 3.0 25km NE of Noatak, Alaska 2014-04-18 19:05:51 UTC 7.0 km 5.3 33km NE of Noatak, Alaska 2014-04-18 18:56:46 UTC 33.0 km 3.7 34km NE of Noatak, Alaska 2014-04-18 18:53:04 UTC 16.5 km 3.8 20km NE of Noatak, Alaska 2014-04-18 18:52:12 UTC 20.2 km 5.6 23km ENE of Noatak, Alaska 2014-04-18 18:44:18 UTC 23.4 km And not to go a day without being heard from, one 4+ in California: 4.3 13km S of Bodfish, California 2014-04-19 12:15:13 UTC 5.6 km USGS Edit: Oh, and a 4 in Oklahoma, too: 4.0 3km SE of Perry, Oklahoma 2014-04-19 10:43:10 UTC 4.1 km edit on 4/19/2014 by Nyiah because: (no reason given)

Those quakes do seem a little peculiar.

Noatak is way up north and doesn't look like it's near any big fault line, Tok and Deltana are both located near the center of the state, also not located on the ring of fire.

I wish I could post the picture I'm looking at because there is more of the same activity going on In those locations this morning.

I wonder if some of the earthquake savy members may have an opinion on this?

a reply to: PuterMan

I gotcha that's makes sense thanks for your time

a reply to: Olivine
This is the scale I look at the IRIS graphs at (usually) _s0.0005, so I can compare apples with apples across the globe, so here is your Honiara graph scaled
HNR_s0.0005

sometimes you get a better idea from further away SNZO 4,279.2km away. Thats a pretty big wiggle, bigger than what a 7.4 might look like at that distance, so I think GFZ may be right 7.4 + 7.0 nine minutes later.

If you follow the colour sequence of the lines on the graph, it goes
black
blue
green
red
so at that distance (on SNZO)
black line is the long P wave (the PP wave is spot on at +8m 50s, 13:36:49) link for that info
blue line is the 7.4 S wave, starts to show at 13:41
and green line is the 7.0
although the green line looks before the blue one, it is in fact afterwards

for comparison, the blue line up top of the graph is the earlier M6.6, so the green can NOT be 5.6 like USGS say it is.



Ha! GFZ just changed their 2nd quake to 5.6mb
So I read it wrong. Maybe.


I note the timing of these big quakes the last few days, early morning NZST, thats 3 mornings in a row I have woke up at 3-4am and couldn't get back to sleep so got up and had a coffee and hit the laptop to find 7's. Must be the S waves!!!

a reply to: BO XIAN

You might not have to wait that long, there is every chance there will be a big M8 right there on the Solomon trench THIS month

a reply to: muzzy

So it appears.

My aunt and uncle were missionaries in that region. There's a lot of very precious people there.

Sigh.

Please Be safe Master Quake Jockey.

Done with Chile at the 31 day mark, onto the next one eh
I'm going to use IRIS Wilber 3 for this one, they are more up to date than ANSS, both are using the NEIC PDE data, either one is easier than going through Useless directly.
Solomon Is 11/04/2014-19/04/2014 IRIS data, muzzified. You can get the same kind of maps using Wilber 3 if you fiddle around with the parameters on the right hand side, but clicking on each icon only takes you to another page rather than show the full details, can take a while to go through them all, there have been 8 quakes already above M6

I've got 9,466,911.65TTNT energy released so far, that is equal to a single M7.8652, although the data is a mixture of mb and Mw, so if they were all converted to mb it would likely be less than that total.
That is based on having a look at GSRAS as they always show mb (and sometimes Ms), e.g. for that 7.5Mw, GSRAS had 7.4ms and 6.8mb.

page will be posted here once I get going with it

I have to insist that Central America is not over doing whatever it is that it is doing. Forgetting Mexico, and forgetting those always regular earthquakes in Puerto Rico, there are several mid sized quakes. 2 in Panama, 1 Nicaragua, 1 Honduras, and 1 Guatemala. Also I would like to add the recent one in Anguilla to the east. That's makes 6 in the Central America area. To compare that to the recently active South America we find only one registered on the USGS map for today.

Oh, and Alaska is still a place where we may see a larger quake. There has been some new activity with those two 5's and continuing activity. Except, I have a feeling if Alaska gets a larger quake, it may not be in the same area as the two 5's.
hmmm

originally posted by: ericblair4891
I have to insist that Central America is not over doing whatever it is that it is doing. Forgetting Mexico, and forgetting those always regular earthquakes in Puerto Rico, there are several mid sized quakes. 2 in Panama, 1 Nicaragua, 1 Honduras, and 1 Guatemala. Also I would like to add the recent one in Anguilla to the east. That's makes 6 in the Central America area. To compare that to the recently active South America we find only one registered on the USGS map for today.

If you insist on using USGS for areas like South America then you won't get any good results. EMSC goes down to Mag 2 in South America.

Prov,Date/Time UTC,Latitude,Longitude,Magnitude,Depth(Km),Location
emsc,2014-04-19 01:15:13, -19.921, -70.903, 4.1, 40.0, Offshore Tarapaca Chile
emsc,2014-04-19 03:47:56, -18.872, -63.454, 4.4, 30.0, Santa Cruz Bolivia
emsc,2014-04-19 04:22:01, -19.002, -63.414, 4.5, 54.0, Santa Cruz Bolivia
emsc,2014-04-19 14:09:45, -20.058, -70.893, 4.1, 40.0, Offshore Tarapaca Chile
emsc,2014-04-19 18:05:23, -32.702, -71.601, 4.1, 29.0, Offshore Valparaiso Chile

Central America as defined by the IEB and using EMSC reports

Prov,Date/Time UTC,Latitude,Longitude,Magnitude,Depth(Km),Location
emsc,2014-04-19 05:01:49, 19.269, -65.524, 4.5, 53.0, Puerto Rico Region
emsc,2014-04-19 05:27:53, 12.462, -87.735, 4.3, 80.0, Nr. Coast Of Nicaragua
emsc,2014-04-19 06:52:20, 17.624, -100.914, 4.2, 43.0, Guerrero Mexico
emsc,2014-04-19 13:36:12, 8.637, -82.747, 4.7, 15.0, Panama Costa Rica Border Region
emsc,2014-04-19 14:58:18, 17.539, -101.185, 5.0, 40.0, Guerrero Mexico
emsc,2014-04-19 15:59:00, 17.084, -101.502, 4.3, 10.0, Offshore Guerrero Mexico
emsc,2014-04-19 17:33:30, 14.201, -91.269, 4.5, 80.0, Guatemala
emsc,2014-04-19 19:31:35, 17.900, -62.562, 5.1, 60.0, St. Martin Region Leeward Isl.

a reply to: PuterMan

Well, I was mainly looking at the 4.5+. But it's no matter now, because Chile had a 5.8M a bit ago.
That aside, it may be my imagination but there's one showing up on Momotomba around that hasn't been listed. I don't think it's Chile. Maybe. Around 21:45ish UTC?

I found it. 4.4M Nicaragua.

WOW Again
M6.1 - 96km SSW of Panguna, Papua New Guinea
earthquake.usgs.gov...

Apart from Japan's 9.0....I never remember seeing 11 5mag quakes in one day!

earthquake.usgs.gov...

Must be the blood moons!

just going over the data for Solomons is
I know have said this before, but USGS/NEIC and IRIS are hiding the seriousness of the situation there by not converting all mb to Mw, there are 8 x M6's on Geoscience Australias site since the 11th, not counting the M7's.
GeoAu have mb, Ms and Mwp magnitudes in their Technical and Scientific page for each event.
5.42mb = 6.2Mwp
so how many quakes above 5.3mb (and below 7) are there in the IRIS NEID PDE data that could be converted to Mw and be M6's ?????????
17 (seventeen) s_e_v_e_n_t_e_e_n !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

a reply to: radpetey
Here are a few day with 11 or more 5+. Not including March thru April 2011.

2/27/2010 : 128 , 2/6/2013 : 77 , 7/17/2006 : 58 , 11/15/2006 : 54 , 2/28/2010 : 48 , 4/11/2012 : 46 , 5/12/2008 : 36 , 9/29/2009 : 35 , 2/11/2009 : 34 , 1/21/2007 : 33 , 12/21/2010 : 33 , 9/13/2007 : 32 , 10/8/2005 : 31 , 4/1/2007 : 31 , 10/8/2009 : 31 , 12/25/2010 : 31 , 4/2/2007 : 29 , 10/7/2009 : 29 , 2/12/2009 : 28 , 5/10/2011 : 26 , 4/3/2007 : 25 , 8/16/2007 : 24 , 9/30/2009 : 24 , 11/14/2010 : 24 , 2/2/2012 : 23 , 4/2/2014 : 23 , 4/30/2006 : 22 , 11/16/2006 : 22 , 7/26/2009 : 22 , 8/14/2010 : 22 , 2/8/2013 : 22 , 7/18/2006 : 21 , 1/3/2009 : 21 , 12/22/2010 : 21 , 7/7/2011 : 21 , 3/1/2010 : 20 , 3/2/2010 : 20 , 3/11/2010 : 20 , 7/9/2011 : 20 , 2/7/2013 : 20 , 4/1/2006 : 19 , 5/1/2006 : 19 , 4/4/2007 : 19 , 9/12/2007 : 19 , 7/11/2011 : 19 , 1/13/2007 : 18 , 8/19/2007 : 18 , 9/28/2007 : 18 , 10/1/2009 : 18 , 10/2/2009 : 18 , 4/3/2014 : 18 , 4/11/2008 : 17 , 12/9/2008 : 17 , 3/8/2010 : 17 , 8/10/2010 : 17 , 1/13/2011 : 17 , 1/28/2012 : 17 , 5/19/2013 : 17 , 3/9/2006 : 16 , 7/19/2006 : 16 , 3/3/2008 : 16 , 12/20/2008 : 16 , 1/4/2009 : 16 , 4/21/2009 : 16 , 1/13/2010 : 16 , 11/17/2013 : 16 , 6/14/2005 : 15 , 4/21/2006 : 15 , 11/17/2006 : 15 , 9/2/2007 : 15 , 9/24/2007 : 15 , 2/20/2008 : 15 , 10/10/2009 : 15 , 3/5/2010 : 15 , 12/8/2010 : 15 , 12/26/2010 : 15 , 12/27/2010 : 15 , 8/20/2011 : 15 , 2/26/2012 : 15 , 8/31/2012 : 15 , 10/15/2013 : 15 , 7/26/2005 : 14 , 4/20/2006 : 14 , 8/2/2007 : 14 , 12/19/2007 : 14 , 1/19/2009 : 14 , 7/15/2009 : 14 , 3/4/2010 : 14 , 3/18/2010 : 14 , 11/3/2010 : 14 , 5/11/2011 : 14 , 7/12/2011 : 14 , 9/4/2012 : 14 , 2/9/2013 : 14 , 5/21/2013 : 14 , 4/19/2014 : 14 , 5/3/2006 : 13 , 5/24/2006 : 13 , 10/17/2006 : 13 , 2/24/2007 : 13 , 4/20/2007 : 13 , 6/23/2007 : 13 , 7/15/2007 : 13 , 7/28/2007 : 13 , 9/15/2007 : 13 , 9/27/2007 : 13 , 10/2/2007 : 13 , 11/14/2007 : 13 , 11/15/2007 : 13 , 11/29/2007 : 13 , 7/16/2009 : 13 , 1/18/2010 : 13 , 2/28/2011 : 13 , 5/5/2011 : 13 , 10/28/2012 : 13 , 12/7/2012 : 13 , 8/16/2013 : 13 , 4/11/2014 : 13 , 9/24/2005 : 12 , 9/25/2005 : 12 , 11/26/2007 : 12 , 3/21/2008 : 12 , 6/1/2008 : 12 , 9/1/2008 : 12 , 9/11/2008 : 12 , 2/13/2009 : 12 , 3/14/2010 : 12 , 6/16/2010 : 12 , 7/24/2010 : 12 , 9/29/2010 : 12 , 9/30/2010 : 12 , 12/28/2010 : 12 , 12/30/2010 : 12 , 1/7/2011 : 12 , 2/10/2013 : 12 , 8/31/2013 : 12 , 9/24/2013 : 12 , 3/2/2014 : 12 , 10/17/2005 : 11 , 5/22/2006 : 11 , 10/1/2006 : 11 , 10/9/2006 : 11 , 10/12/2006 : 11 , 11/7/2006 : 11 , 11/18/2006 : 11 , 11/29/2006 : 11 , 12/26/2006 : 11 , 1/22/2007 : 11 , 2/17/2007 : 11 , 8/17/2007 : 11 , 8/18/2007 : 11 , 9/14/2007 : 11 , 11/20/2007 : 11 , 12/13/2007 : 11 , 1/5/2008 : 11 , 2/25/2008 : 11 , 2/26/2008 : 11 , 4/9/2008 : 11 , 5/19/2008 : 11 , 7/19/2008 : 11 , 11/7/2008 : 11 , 4/15/2009 : 11 , 4/16/2009 : 11 , 10/15/2009 : 11 , 11/28/2009 : 11 , 1/5/2010 : 11 , 3/3/2010 : 11 , 3/12/2010 : 11 , 3/13/2010 : 11 , 6/13/2010 : 11 , 7/23/2010 : 11 , 8/15/2010 : 11 , 9/3/2010 : 11 , 10/4/2010 : 11 , 10/25/2010 : 11 , 12/23/2010 : 11 , 1/1/2012 : 11 , 1/12/2012 : 11 , 2/4/2012 : 11 , 2/9/2012 : 11 , 4/12/2012 : 11 , 5/20/2012 : 11 , 8/27/2012 : 11 , 4/5/2013 : 11 , 11/16/2013 : 11 , 4/12/2014 : 11 , 4/17/2014 : 11 ,