7 ms·
Entire Japan coast shifted 2.4 metres, earth axis moves ten inches
- seigenblues 16y agosomewhere in Japan, someone has hardcoded GPS locations into their autonomous dishwashing robot, and is now wondering why it can't find the sink... (btw, another version of the story with citations, attributed quotes is here: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/12/japan.earthquake.tsunami.earth/index.html http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/12/japan.earthq...)
- tokenadult 16y agoFor someone who has lived through a massive earthquake (as I did in Taiwan in 1989), the disturbing thing, even for someone who has lived in earthquake zones for years, is the aftershocks. They build up to a doubt about whether the earth can ever be counted on to lie still. Now after more than a decade of living somewhere where earthquakes are unknown, I largely am back to counting on the earth beneath my feet to lie still. (The danger here, and it is a considerable danger, is slipping and falling on ice. That paralyzed my dad for the last six years of his life.) The earthquake news from Japan brings back a lot of memories from the Ring of Fire. Many people there will be wondering over the next few weeks if the term "solid ground" has any meaning at all.
- kevruger 16y agoI experienced the 7.2 earthquake on Easter of 2010 in Southern California (San Diego area) and the thing I remember the most is that I felt at least one aftershock per day for at least the next 30-45 days. Nothing serious, they were always in the 4.5-5 scale region.
- kazuya 16y agoNow that my sense on quakes seems unreliable, probably due to series of aftershocks, I just have installed SeisMac (a seismometer app for Mac) to tell if it is really an aftershock.
- X-Istence 16y agoI lived in Phoenix when there was an Earthquake somewhere down south in Mexico and I felt it. The earth was moving back and forth, the blinds on my window moved back and forth and not ever having felt an Earthquake it was the weirdest feeling in the world. I can't imagine a strong earthquake or what it would feel like, but Phoenix which is definitely not known for its earthquakes moving underneath my feet made me more wary about what I am walking on than ever before.
- gnaritas 16y agoWhen was this? I've been in Phoenix for 20 years have never heard of anyone here saying such a thing.
- Natsu 16y agoI think it happened early in the morning or something. I remember hearing about it, but I was asleep at the time and didn't feel anything. But yes, there was one that supposedly could be felt from here a while back.
- X-Istence 16y agoLast year, sometime around April if I remember correctly... let me check my Facebook backup. (Yay for searching a big huge HTML document) April 4, 2010 is when it happened, sometime late in the morning, afternoon. I just remember just waking up and trying to decide if I should go take a shower or not, and thus lying in bed. http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eqarchives/poster/2010/20100404.php http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eqarchives/poster/201... http://www.examiner.com/supernatural-christianity-in-phoenix/phoenix-area-feels-easter-sunday-earthquake http://www.examiner.com/supernatural-christianity-in-phoenix...
- eps 16y agoI'll raise you - a friend of a friend's grandad sent his family for a summer vacation and was sitting in bathroom reading a book, enjoying the quiet. The bathroom door was left open and he could see out into the apartment. With a corner of his eye he caught a chandelier in the living room that started swinging and then he felt the floor moving underneath his feet. Since this was in Moscow, the city sitting on the plateau, his first thought was that he was having a stroke. And the second - that it'd be a shame to collapse with his pants down, real shame. It did not occur to him it could be a quake, which it was. The only time in modern history a noticeable quake was felt in Moscow. So yeah... quakes can really sneak up on you ;)
- dhughes 16y agoAftershocks amaze me, I've never felt an earthquake and they are non-existent where I live but I find it amazing an aftershock can occur months later.
- Ratfish 16y agoHave a look at this. http://www.geonet.org.nz/earthquake/quakes/recent_quakes.html http://www.geonet.org.nz/earthquake/quakes/recent_quakes.htm... Christchurch, New Zealand. Main quake, 7.1 on the scale (and with hindsight, not all that bad), was almost six months before a very shallow 6.3 aftershock which was very bad and had lots of deaths. So far there have been something like 8000 aftershocks. People from the area often seem shell-shocked.
- rue 16y agoAn aftershock is, essentially, an earthquake caused either by the continuing event that caused the first quake or by the resettling of the earth in the area, and especially the latter can take a long time.
- reeses 16y agoIt's disturbing even at a subconscious level. I left two windows open, creating a cross breeze, and a brief gust at 2am days after the quake caused my window blinds to rattle. I awoke from a deep, deep sleep with all the hair standing up on my body and the proverbial "colon turned to water" feeling of stark terror. There is very little fear like it.
- Pyrodogg 16y agoContains some bullet points with nothing to back them or the headline up. Has some videos though if you haven't caught them elsewhere.
- jevinskie 16y agoDoes this affect the orbit of satellites? Do satellite location services like GPS need recalibration?
- Tautology 16y agoI am not even sure if civilian GPS's posses the ability to be accurate to ten inches.
- jcapote 16y agoSurely its accurate to 2.4 meteres though?
- wtallis 16y agoAccording to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide_Area_Augmentation_System#Comparison_of_accuracy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide_Area_Augmentation_System#C... normal GPS systems will be accurate to within 2.5 m 95% of the time. Better accuracy can be achieved using differential GPS systems and things like WAAS, but they rely on ground-based systems and thus might not be a good way to measure how much the ground shifted.
- Mz 16y agoMy GIS certificate is ancient at this point and I have never managed to work in the field I trained for, but my recollection is that they are accurate to within only about 10 meters, whether personal or professional, unless you spend quite a lot of time gathering data from multiple satellites (on the order of several hours, depending upon the level of accuracy you are seeking). EDIT: In other words, "I just turned mine on" shouldn't get any reading on any system that is more accurate than about 10 meters. It takes time to get accurate readings with GPS. Someone with a more recent credential/professional experience want to confirm or deny that recollection -- or even update it with more recent facts? (For reference to my question of "more recent", IIRC, I got my certificate in 2002.)
- mturmon 16y agoHere's a surprising fact. If you allow after-the-fact reprocessing of the GPS and significantly increased modeling technology, you can get millimeter accuracy from civilian GPS. For more on this global network of re-analyzed GPS, see: http://sideshow.jpl.nasa.gov/mbh/series.html http://sideshow.jpl.nasa.gov/mbh/series.html Here's a particular time series, near Claremont, CA, a few tens of miles east of LA proper: http://sideshow.jpl.nasa.gov/mbh/all/plots/CLAR.jpg http://sideshow.jpl.nasa.gov/mbh/all/plots/CLAR.jpg These plots are lat/lon/height (in centimeter units) versus time. In the height plot, you can see a several-cm drift which has annual/seasonal features. This is due to subsidence due to pumping of ground water in the summer. You can also see some green lines which I believe are large earthquakes. Besides airborne and (coming soon) satellite radar interferometry, reprocessed GPS is one of the main ways we have to observe seismic displacement fields.
- silentbicycle 16y agoI've felt a distant earthquake once, in Michigan (not exactly an earthquake zone) - it was deeply unnerving, particularly in an office on the fifth floor of an old factory building. I can't imagine being trapped amidst suddenly collapsing buildings, or knowing that it could potentially happen any time. I hope the worst is over and people have reconnecting with their families by now. Also, I don't want to trivialize what the Japanese are going through, but why does Japan move in metric while the Earth moves in imperial units? Sheesh.
- athom 16y agoHow long ago was that? I felt one from Michigan myself a few years back, that originated down in southern Indiana. That was around 3 or 4AM, though, so unless you were working late or living in your office... The American midwest may not be earthquake central, but it has its faults. New Madrid, in particular: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Madrid_Seismic_Zone http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Madrid_Seismic_Zone I remember the noise around Iben Browning's 1989/90 prediction, but it looks like nothing major has happened there since. Yet.
- silentbicycle 16y agoIt was this one, last June: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Central_Canada_earthquake http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Central_Canada_earthquake .
- hysterix 16y agoThe power of the northridge earthquake was indescribable. To think that this quake in Japan was more powerful blows me away. During the northridge quake, it literally felt like the entire world was coming to an end.
- Bud 16y agoThe Japan quake (8.9) was over 900 times more powerful than Northridge (6.7). Each point on the Richter scale is a 30x increase in energy.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- angus77 16y agoNow, isn't that so Canadian? The headline mixes metric and imperial.
- maayank 16y agoa. does it mean that the velocity of earth's rotation changed? b. and thus, by virtue of relativity, time (for us earth people)?
- brazzy 16y agoIf the rotation speed of earth changed (and this is definitely possible), then by a really, really tiny amount (something like a day getting a thousandth of a second longer or shorter)
- arrogant 16y agoI live in Florida, and I'll take the risk of hurricanes and tornadoes any day over earthquakes. Just the sudden and unavoidable nature of earthquakes makes them seem orders of magnitude worse to me.
- codex 16y agoHow do you feel about the risk that most of Florida will be underwater in a few decades?
- arrogant 16y agoLet the whole state go under. I'll be long gone by then. (All kidding aside, I haven't really heard anything about that, and it isn't a pleasant thought. Any particular articles on the subject that you've seen?)
- codex 16y agoI'm only half-joking. The sealevel rise estimates are all over the map (no pun intended). For one estimation on the effect on Florida, see: http://www.globalwarmingart.com/sealevel?lat=30.487&lng=-84.375&zoom=5 http://www.globalwarmingart.com/sealevel?lat=30.487&lng=... For one estimate of +2m, see: http://www.reportingclimatescience.com/news-stories/article/global-warming-may-cause-2m-sea-level-rise-this-century-say-experts.html http://www.reportingclimatescience.com/news-stories/article/... Again, I don't know how likely this is, but Florida is one of the most vulnerable states in the US. The prize probably goes to Louisiana with North Carolina in the top 3.
- spoiledtechie 16y agoThe U.S. military is planning an excursion and training exercise later this year on the Madrid Fault. My company is planning on demoing some new tech there. http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2003/fs017-03/images/madrid.jpg http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2003/fs017-03/images/madrid.jpg. Last time it hit, the bells range in Massachusetts around 1890. If one were to hit today expected loss of life is in the 1000's. They would expect a total loss of infrastructure for stuff that has been built over 100 years ago. They have no earthquake building codes so imagine something that would destroy buildings just like the one did in Japan. Happily only several hundred were lost compared to what is expect of the Madrid fault.