6 ms·

As a resident of Australia I have always liked that I live in the middle of a contential plate that has not been under a mile of ice in the recent past. Sure we

As a resident of Australia I have always liked that I live in the middle of a contential plate that has not been under a mile of ice in the recent past. Sure we lack majestic mountains, but geological stability is a nice alternative.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
idlewords 10y ago
Australia is geologically quiet... too quiet.
- sunstone 10y ago
  Don't mention the snakes :O ... and spiders, box jellies and killer koalas. Ah white sharks and salt water crocs. Have I missed anything?
  - knz 10y ago
    Drop bears? More seriously, didn't Australia previously have some geological activity? I've heard of lava tubes near Cairns and have visited the Sunshine Coast where I believe there are (dormant?) volcanos?
    - flukus 10y ago
      Those volcanoes are a feature of the area, but they seem to be very much extinct, not dormant.
  - idlewords 10y ago
    The deadliest animals in Australia, by far, are horses and cattle. That's the secret Australians don't want you to know!
    - hga 10y ago
      You don't have any deer like we in the US do, right? That's our deadest animal, through crashing with cars.
      - vacri 10y ago
        They have (imported) deer in NZ, but I'm not sure how widespread. The analogue of deer here in Aus are kangaroos, but they're not so deadly in a crash. Livestock are indeed our deadliest animals. Most of our native wildlife is pretty sleepy and shy - there's only a couple of snakes that are aggressive; most run (slither?) away from humans. Apart from that, crocodiles are really only the remaining aggressive land animal, but there's not a lot of overlap between a population map of humans vs crocodiles here.
        flukus 10y ago
        Cassowaries can be pretty aggressive. Dingos are dangerous for children. Magpies are very aggressive but can only maim, not kill.
        vacri 10y ago
        I thought about including cassowaries, but you generally have to provoke them - they don't usually hunt you down to attack you. Magpies swoop, sure, but that's not the kind of dangerous that people talk about. Dingoes, fair enough, I missed those. They're opportunistic though, and you have to go looking for reports on attacks (apart from the obvious one, which was hard to escape the media frenzy of...). Dingo attacks a but a drop in the ocean compared to other (pet) dog attacks here.
        caf 10y ago
        There's feral deer in the Australian Alps. I came across one in the middle of the road driving back from Thredbo very late one night.
      - flukus 10y ago
        Kangaroos fill that niche here.
  - flukus 10y ago
    But at least the land itself doesn't want to kill us.
    - tajen 10y ago
      Well, except when a beach tries to swallow you: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3250475/A-car-caravan-camping-trailer-disappear-giant-SINKHOLE-size-football-field-opened-Queensland-beach.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3250475/A-car-carava... ...or when your backyard tries to swallow you: https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2016/aug/02/news-footage-shows-giant-sinkhole-take-chunk-of-australian-back-yard-video https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2016/aug/02/news-foo... That is an anecdote obviously, not a widespread danger.
  - satori99 10y ago
    I'll probably get a visit from the Australian Secret Tourist Police for saying this to foreigners, but the danger is way overstated. The last person that died from a spider bite was in 1979. Snakes and spiders mostly just want to left alone. Crocodiles and marine stingers only exist in the tropics, and Sharks only eat ocean swimmers. I grew up very close to native bush land on the outskirts of Sydney and have never been 'prey' to another creature while playing in the bush. Of course, I wouldn't have done that if drop-bears [1] were around though. [1] http://australianmuseum.net.au/drop-bear http://australianmuseum.net.au/drop-bear
    - josephcooney 10y ago
      > [I] have never been 'prey' to another creature while playing in the bus Survivor bias, mate.
    - danieltillett 10y ago
      I grew up on the north coast of NSW in the bush and the big thing that used to scare me were death adders [1]. The bastards lie in wait in the leaf litter waiting for a bird to come down and grab their tail which they wave around like a worm. Unlike all the other snakes they don't run away when they hear you coming so they are easy to step on - the fact they are one of the most venomous snakes in the world is just the cherry on top. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acanthophis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acanthophis
    - will_hughes 10y ago
      > The last person that died from a spider bite was in 1979. There was one this year, actually[1]. Non-fatal bites are more common, but there's no official statistics because it's not a reportable medical emergency. Folks that live near bushland of any variety know to do the basics like not sticking your fingers into areas you can't see, and not weeding/digging in the garden within the Sydney region with bare hands. [1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/12/young-man-dies-after-spider-bite-during-australian-bushwalk/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/12/young-man-dies-af...
  - roel_v 10y ago
    Fun fact: the most common spider-related cause of death in Australia is not people being bitten, but a spider hiding in a car's sun visor, people opening said visor while driving and then crashing the car when the spider falls into their lap. (BTH, this requires only one such fatal crash because nobody in Australia has died from a spider bite since 1979).
roel_v 10y ago
I don't know where in Australia you live, but as someone currently doing earthquake and other natural hazard modeling for Australia - I think your confidence is unwarranted.
disordinary 10y ago
The problem is complacently means that when small events happen you're going to suffer comparatively more. I used to work for a structural engineering firm here in New Zealand, and we had to bring in a whole lot of Australian Engineers to meet the workload of assessing buildings in Christchurch after the Earthquake. They said that engineering in Australia is dull and easy compared to in NZ, which is fine until something happens. Back in 89 there was a comparatively minor Earthquake in Newcastle which resulted in a disproportionate amount of damage and unfortunate loss of life. I'd kind of rather be sitting in a base isolated modern NZ building in a large earthquake than a non earthquake sound building in another country in a minor earthquake. Of course if I never have to live through another earthquake I'd be most happy. Be safe. :)
- trprog 10y ago
  Its all about spending your energy preparing for more likely damaging events. In Australia little attention gets paid to earthquakes but fire safety standards and preparation are no joke, especially in the country. Maintaining fire breaks and doing controlled burns are a big part of life for a lot of country people. Its not entirely uncommon for people to have backup generators and a pump specifically so they can still pump water in the event of a fire and power has been lost. Many homes that are surrounded by bush sit on their own little island of barren ground that has been cleared of virtually all vegetation. It freaks out me out seeing TV shows from the US in particular where they have houses surrounded by trees with trees literally hanging over the house. The road leading out also has a beautiful canopy of trees right against the side of the road. They look like deathtraps to me but presumably they don't live in a walk-in tinderbox like some parts of Australia.
  - hga 10y ago
    Yeah, it depends on the region, but here in my pretty wet part of SW Missouri we have "Red Flag" days (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_flag_warning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_flag_warning) when we have to be extra careful, but we're simply not in real danger of that sort of disaster, although I did remove the tree "literally hanging over the house" and damaging the roof of the house I recently bought that was built in 1910, that's just simple prudence in many dimensions. But the house is still surrounded by trees, including a couple of giant maples in the back yard which need topping, then again this is in city neighborhood with 0.06 or a bit more hectare residential lots, without a good fire fighting service it would have eventually gotten burned out one way or another. We've even got one city, Somerville, MA, which has enough fuel density in its residential buildings to support a true firestorm (and I've watched their firefighters in action, they's good). On the other hand, out in the drier western part of the country, in plenty of it people ought to take the sorts of precautions you outline, but of course many are complacent and expect the government to come to their rescue, are just willing to make the tradeoffs (many areas aren't that dry), or I'm sure in some cases are limited by zoning from doing the smart thing. Here we also had many decades of insane government forestry polices where simply stopping all fires was the paradigm. You can guess what the eventual result was, as well as how dicey trying to do the first controlled burn of a fire suppressed area is....
antod 10y ago
Well before Christchurch, there was a couple of decade stretch when Australia had had a more recent fatal quake than NZ.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

idlewords 10y ago

Australia is geologically quiet... too quiet.

sunstone 10y ago
Don't mention the snakes :O ... and spiders, box jellies and killer koalas. Ah white sharks and salt water crocs. Have I missed anything?
- knz 10y ago
  Drop bears? More seriously, didn't Australia previously have some geological activity? I've heard of lava tubes near Cairns and have visited the Sunshine Coast where I believe there are (dormant?) volcanos?
  - flukus 10y ago
    Those volcanoes are a feature of the area, but they seem to be very much extinct, not dormant.
- idlewords 10y ago
  The deadliest animals in Australia, by far, are horses and cattle. That's the secret Australians don't want you to know!
  - hga 10y ago
    You don't have any deer like we in the US do, right? That's our deadest animal, through crashing with cars.
    - vacri 10y ago
      They have (imported) deer in NZ, but I'm not sure how widespread. The analogue of deer here in Aus are kangaroos, but they're not so deadly in a crash. Livestock are indeed our deadliest animals. Most of our native wildlife is pretty sleepy and shy - there's only a couple of snakes that are aggressive; most run (slither?) away from humans. Apart from that, crocodiles are really only the remaining aggressive land animal, but there's not a lot of overlap between a population map of humans vs crocodiles here.
      - flukus 10y ago
        Cassowaries can be pretty aggressive. Dingos are dangerous for children. Magpies are very aggressive but can only maim, not kill.
        vacri 10y ago
        I thought about including cassowaries, but you generally have to provoke them - they don't usually hunt you down to attack you. Magpies swoop, sure, but that's not the kind of dangerous that people talk about. Dingoes, fair enough, I missed those. They're opportunistic though, and you have to go looking for reports on attacks (apart from the obvious one, which was hard to escape the media frenzy of...). Dingo attacks a but a drop in the ocean compared to other (pet) dog attacks here.
      - caf 10y ago
        There's feral deer in the Australian Alps. I came across one in the middle of the road driving back from Thredbo very late one night.
    - flukus 10y ago
      Kangaroos fill that niche here.
- flukus 10y ago
  But at least the land itself doesn't want to kill us.
  - tajen 10y ago
    Well, except when a beach tries to swallow you: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3250475/A-car-caravan-camping-trailer-disappear-giant-SINKHOLE-size-football-field-opened-Queensland-beach.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3250475/A-car-carava... ...or when your backyard tries to swallow you: https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2016/aug/02/news-footage-shows-giant-sinkhole-take-chunk-of-australian-back-yard-video https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2016/aug/02/news-foo... That is an anecdote obviously, not a widespread danger.
- satori99 10y ago
  I'll probably get a visit from the Australian Secret Tourist Police for saying this to foreigners, but the danger is way overstated. The last person that died from a spider bite was in 1979. Snakes and spiders mostly just want to left alone. Crocodiles and marine stingers only exist in the tropics, and Sharks only eat ocean swimmers. I grew up very close to native bush land on the outskirts of Sydney and have never been 'prey' to another creature while playing in the bush. Of course, I wouldn't have done that if drop-bears [1] were around though. [1] http://australianmuseum.net.au/drop-bear http://australianmuseum.net.au/drop-bear
  - josephcooney 10y ago
    > [I] have never been 'prey' to another creature while playing in the bus Survivor bias, mate.
  - danieltillett 10y ago
    I grew up on the north coast of NSW in the bush and the big thing that used to scare me were death adders [1]. The bastards lie in wait in the leaf litter waiting for a bird to come down and grab their tail which they wave around like a worm. Unlike all the other snakes they don't run away when they hear you coming so they are easy to step on - the fact they are one of the most venomous snakes in the world is just the cherry on top. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acanthophis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acanthophis
  - will_hughes 10y ago
    > The last person that died from a spider bite was in 1979. There was one this year, actually[1]. Non-fatal bites are more common, but there's no official statistics because it's not a reportable medical emergency. Folks that live near bushland of any variety know to do the basics like not sticking your fingers into areas you can't see, and not weeding/digging in the garden within the Sydney region with bare hands. [1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/12/young-man-dies-after-spider-bite-during-australian-bushwalk/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/12/young-man-dies-af...
- roel_v 10y ago
  Fun fact: the most common spider-related cause of death in Australia is not people being bitten, but a spider hiding in a car's sun visor, people opening said visor while driving and then crashing the car when the spider falls into their lap. (BTH, this requires only one such fatal crash because nobody in Australia has died from a spider bite since 1979).

roel_v 10y ago

I don't know where in Australia you live, but as someone currently doing earthquake and other natural hazard modeling for Australia - I think your confidence is unwarranted.

disordinary 10y ago

The problem is complacently means that when small events happen you're going to suffer comparatively more. I used to work for a structural engineering firm here in New Zealand, and we had to bring in a whole lot of Australian Engineers to meet the workload of assessing buildings in Christchurch after the Earthquake. They said that engineering in Australia is dull and easy compared to in NZ, which is fine until something happens. Back in 89 there was a comparatively minor Earthquake in Newcastle which resulted in a disproportionate amount of damage and unfortunate loss of life. I'd kind of rather be sitting in a base isolated modern NZ building in a large earthquake than a non earthquake sound building in another country in a minor earthquake. Of course if I never have to live through another earthquake I'd be most happy. Be safe. :)

trprog 10y ago
Its all about spending your energy preparing for more likely damaging events. In Australia little attention gets paid to earthquakes but fire safety standards and preparation are no joke, especially in the country. Maintaining fire breaks and doing controlled burns are a big part of life for a lot of country people. Its not entirely uncommon for people to have backup generators and a pump specifically so they can still pump water in the event of a fire and power has been lost. Many homes that are surrounded by bush sit on their own little island of barren ground that has been cleared of virtually all vegetation. It freaks out me out seeing TV shows from the US in particular where they have houses surrounded by trees with trees literally hanging over the house. The road leading out also has a beautiful canopy of trees right against the side of the road. They look like deathtraps to me but presumably they don't live in a walk-in tinderbox like some parts of Australia.
- hga 10y ago
  Yeah, it depends on the region, but here in my pretty wet part of SW Missouri we have "Red Flag" days (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_flag_warning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_flag_warning) when we have to be extra careful, but we're simply not in real danger of that sort of disaster, although I did remove the tree "literally hanging over the house" and damaging the roof of the house I recently bought that was built in 1910, that's just simple prudence in many dimensions. But the house is still surrounded by trees, including a couple of giant maples in the back yard which need topping, then again this is in city neighborhood with 0.06 or a bit more hectare residential lots, without a good fire fighting service it would have eventually gotten burned out one way or another. We've even got one city, Somerville, MA, which has enough fuel density in its residential buildings to support a true firestorm (and I've watched their firefighters in action, they's good). On the other hand, out in the drier western part of the country, in plenty of it people ought to take the sorts of precautions you outline, but of course many are complacent and expect the government to come to their rescue, are just willing to make the tradeoffs (many areas aren't that dry), or I'm sure in some cases are limited by zoning from doing the smart thing. Here we also had many decades of insane government forestry polices where simply stopping all fires was the paradigm. You can guess what the eventual result was, as well as how dicey trying to do the first controlled burn of a fire suppressed area is....

antod 10y ago

Well before Christchurch, there was a couple of decade stretch when Australia had had a more recent fatal quake than NZ.