7 ms·
Magnitude-8+ Earthquake, 87km SW of Pijijiapan, Mexico
- mrb 9y agoReally cool "green lightning" effect observed before and during the earthquake: https://mobile.twitter.com/AlanEchelon96/status/906031454529785856 https://mobile.twitter.com/AlanEchelon96/status/906031454529... I believe this phenomenon is still not understood...
- adventured 9y agoIt's from damage to the electrical grid.
- King-Aaron 9y agoWhile this is very plausible, it wouldn't explain the historical accounts of "earthquake lights" that have been reported as far back as the 1600's (http://srl.geoscienceworld.org/content/85/1/159 http://srl.geoscienceworld.org/content/85/1/159) Edit: It's also been reported around the world that these lights can occur days, even weeks before an earthquake happens. There's a lot of different explanations for it, but I understand that it's never been definitively explained.
- ianai 9y agoI like the stress induced ionization theory from Wikipedia.
- VMG 9y agoUnlikely. Have not seen it for other types of grid damage.
- King-Aaron 9y agoTo be fair, the amount of light emitted from a mains transformer exploding is something to behold
- flukus 9y agoHow much do those things cost? I'd love to see every fireworks show end with blowing one up, watching the world change color for a few seconds is very surreal.
- King-Aaron 9y agoLooking at this document: https://www.endeavourenergy.com.au/wps/wcm/connect/62ccd480402763ea9b00bf5a021d626d/Network+Price+List_201314_v4.pdf?MOD=AJPERES https://www.endeavourenergy.com.au/wps/wcm/connect/62ccd4804... Page 49 lists some prices in a table. It looks like they range from $40,000 to $50,000 (AUD) for a pole-mounted transformer
- InclinedPlane 9y agoThis is what you call "a theory", but it's one with no evidence to back it up. Can you point to other videos of electric grid damage that look similar? The idea of "Earthquake lights" is also a theory, but it's becoming increasingly more likely these days as evidence piles up.
- King-Aaron 9y ago> This is what you call "a theory", but it's one with no evidence to back it up. Can you point to other videos of electric grid damage that look similar? I'm not sure what you're getting at here, have you not seen high voltage lines blow up before personally? Or are you just making a point in this regard? Because the flashes of lights you see on the horizon etc during a heavy storm knocking over transformers and main lines is a pretty widely known thing. I don't understand why you're demanding evidence of it, but: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29O9rzJZurQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29O9rzJZurQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLVFyhyghZo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLVFyhyghZo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqAGYXwj6XM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqAGYXwj6XM etc
- StavrosK 9y agoHah, the guys in the first one are funny: "Something's definitely going wrong there." "Definitely... Do you think it's a new nightclub?"
- King-Aaron 9y agoHaha, I'm glad that's the best/worst of it... Posting videos from work without checking the audio can be a game of russian roulette at times
- dboreham 9y agoI saw a transmission line arcing while driving the other night, just over the crest of a hill. It looked like an alien abduction was in progress. I only know it came from a downed line because a minute later I arrived at the scene and was just able to stop before running over the still live wires lying on the freeway.
- FooHentai 9y agoThis explanation is posted whenever earthquake lights are reported, but it's wrong. I have a few reasons: First. So the explanation goes, during the earthquake power substation transformers and fuses blow, causing these lights. Problem is, the grid doesn't sustain that level of damage during these earthquakes. Yes, the power usually goes out and there is grid damage, but the amount of damage is nowhere near 'every substation blowing', even in the most severe quakes. So the number of lights and number of grid faults do not equal. Second. Earthquake lights present in the sky, not on the ground beneath them. If substations were blowing and creating light, they would light objects in their immediate vicinity (e.g. buildings) more than they would illuminate clouds. But that doesn't happen, and in fact the lights appear within the cloud layers themselves rather than appearing as a projection onto them, as they would if the light source was at ground level. Third. These lights have been witnessed out to sea and over offshore islands, where there is no power grid. That last point is the most compelling for me, because I personally witnessed earthquake lights, less than a year ago, offshore, during the November 2016 7.8 Kaikoura earthquake. During that earthquake, I had this (night time) view: https://imgur.com/a/Nt2wD https://imgur.com/a/Nt2wD
- Nition 9y agoThere were a couple of good videos of the Earthquake Lights from that quake too. This one is really good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVVm7g3QgOA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVVm7g3QgOA The look is very similar to the videos of the ones in Mexico, and very different to the long-lasting beam of light from the ground that seems to come from generator explosions.
- FooHentai 9y agoAmusingly that same video seems to be getting posted as being Mexico, too.
- NickNameNick 9y agoDuring the same earthquake, my curtain fell down, and I saw lights across Wellington harbour that I'm fairly sure were high voltage lines clashing. from my elevated point of view, the source was below the horizon.
- elramram 9y agoIt's called Earthquake Light. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake_light https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake_light
- singularity2001 9y agohttps://youtu.be/D276D9_R2wg?t=46s https://youtu.be/D276D9_R2wg?t=46s
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- ablation 9y agoEarthquake lights like other posters have said, but I wonder if the exceptional geomagnetic activity caused by the recent X-level CME event has any sort of impact on this too? (Thinking auroral activity, but at far too low of a latitude of course).
- topbanana 9y agoI received an email aurora alert late last night UK time, so perhaps there was increased solar activity?
- perlpimp 9y agoactually this is because of arcing beween swinging powerlines.
- kalleboo 9y agoWouldn't it happen during strong wind as well in that case?
- perlpimp 9y agowhy did i get downvoted? seems that hn is populated by a bunch of ufo believers/bitcoin investors like types that would rather believe than fact check https://youtu.be/GL82cKwG8Ik?t=1m9s https://youtu.be/GL82cKwG8Ik?t=1m9s
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- goshx 9y agoThey upgraded it to 8.4 after.
- legostormtroopr 9y agoI appreciate those kinds of quick release cycles. I'm hoping that when they upgrade to 9.0 we get some new features though.
- goshx 9y agoThey'll probably add trumpet sounds.
- seanmcdirmid 9y agoEach point release just about doubles the force of the earth quake. Makes me wonder how my mom handled the Good Friday one in Anchorage, which was at 9.2.
- saagarjha 9y agoActually, it takes around 0.3 to double to power.
- bhrgunatha 9y agoUSGS (and most reports use the moment magnitude scale - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moment_magnitude_scale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moment_magnitude_scale : Each point is 10 ^ 1.5 (about 31) Every 2 points is 100 The Richter scale is almost never used now but that'd where the factor of 10 per point comes from.
- kalleboo 9y agoMagnitude is a pretty useless scale for the human-level impact of an earthquake (since you have to take into account location, depth, geography etc). I prefer the Shindo scale in Japan, which better informs you how people actually felt it/it affected infrastructure. Each earthquake doesn't get "one" shindo scale, you get a map of shindo readings for each location it was felt in. Then you can say "this earthquake was up to shindo X" if you want to tell somehow the worst effects of it, or "at my house it was shindo X-2" and people understand "oh so you were pretty far away huh"
- quickthrower2 9y agoLive updates http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/09/08/mexico-earthquake-magnitude-8-tremor-rattles-buildings-capital/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/09/08/mexico-earthquake...
- cellularmitosis 9y agoI felt this earthquake in Austin, which is over 1000 miles away. Many others felt it as well: https://mobile.twitter.com/search?q=Austin+earthquake&src=typed_query https://mobile.twitter.com/search?q=Austin+earthquake&src=ty...
- pault 9y agoWhoa! I woke up and thought it was my dog shaking the bed. :)
- singularity2001 9y agoHow do they appropriately measure earthquakes so deep? It had a magnitude of 8.1 on the surface level, however it happened at a depth of 32000 meters! so was it a magnitude 9 earthquake down there, or does the 8.4 already take into account the depth?
- matt_morgan 9y ago32 Kilometers is not very far in earthquake terms. Machines all over the world can feel small earthquakes no matter where they happen, and this is a very big earthquake.
- sp332 9y agoYou can triangulate the location from many stations, and work backward to determine how strong it must have been at the origin.
- maxerickson 9y agoYes, the reported numbers account for the distance between the seismometer and the epicenter of the earthquake, they are the maximum intensity of the quake.
- JetSpiegel 9y agoMagnitude measures energy released, so it takes into account the distance. For damage done on the surface you have the subjective Mercali scale.
- basicplus2 9y agoOne side if the tectonic plate at Japan and indonesia have had movement, now the otherside at mexico, so North Western America must be under more and more strain.
- sp332 9y agoIdaho has had a series of smaller earthquakes over the last few days. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/earthquake-swarm-continues-rattle-idaho-n798946 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/earthquake-swarm-contin...
- afsina 9y agoMany people here in Turkey will think solar eclipse triggered this. Strong 1999 earthquake in Turkey also happened just some weeks after the full solar eclipse. I think it is just a coincidence though. Edit: wording.
- raverbashing 9y agoAre there studies on possible tidal effects (if any) that an eclipse situation could cause?
- adrianN 9y agoTides have an influence on earthquakes [1], but spring tides due to Sun and Moon lining up happen about twice a month, so I don't think that the Eclipse is a likely cause. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_triggering_of_earthquakes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_triggering_of_earthquake...
- matheweis 9y agoSort of; they found that the probability of a quake along shallow thrust faults increases about 3x during full and new moons in general (of which an eclipse is a special case, with no special risk): https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/can-position-moon-or-planets-affect-seismicity-are-there-more-earthquakes-morningin-eveningat-a?qt-news_science_products=7 https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/can-position-moon-or-planets-affec...
- cies 9y agoGotta love Reddit in Turkey then. (Possibly already blocked though) "Magnitude 8.0 Earthquake strikes off Mexico's coast. A Magnitude 8.0 Earthquake was predicted by a Redditor just a day earlier on this subreddit." https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/6yss3m/magnitude_80_earthquake_strikes_off_mexicos_coast/ https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/6yss3m/magnitud...
- matheweis 9y agor/conspiracy aside, looks like the redditor's main theory is that there is some sort of casual link between solar flares and earthquakes. Should be an easy thing for a data scientist to debunk or validate...
- Jupe 9y agoAs for a root cause, could it be related to North Korea's recent nuclear test? http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/849381/tremor-North-Korea-nuclear-test http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/849381/tremor-North-Kore...