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Latest Earthquakes
- version_five 5y agoI liked the previous title about the Monster of the Cascadian Basin. I looked it up (found nothing) but came across this on the cascadian subduction zone: https://pnsn.org/outreach/earthquakesources/csz https://pnsn.org/outreach/earthquakesources/csz This is what's responsible for "megathrust" earthquakes on the west coast every 400-600 years. It seems we're early for one of those, so this is probably not that. I'd love to see more info on the significance, if any, of this movement.
- DyslexicAtheist 5y agothere is a great article on this in the new yorker that has been discussed here a few times. Won some awards for its writing too: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big-one https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big...
- 1shooner 5y agoMy favorite line from that article: >Kenneth Murphy, who directs FEMA’s Region X, the division responsible for Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Alaska, says, “Our operating assumption is that everything west of Interstate 5 will be toast.”
- blacksmith_tb 5y agoSomehow I don't find that too reassuring, even though I am several miles east of I-5... but my house is new construction, and had to pass seismic inspection, so there's some hope.
- Asparagirl 5y agoThese too: "Until 1974, the state of Oregon had no seismic code...seventy-five per cent of all structures in the state are not designed to withstand a major Cascadia quake..." "The shaking from the Cascadia quake will set off landslides throughout the region—up to thirty thousand of them in Seattle alone...Fifteen per cent of Seattle is built on liquefiable land, including seventeen day-care centers and the homes of some thirty-four thousand five hundred people..." "On the coast, those numbers go up. Whoever chooses or has no choice but to stay there will spend three to six months without electricity, one to three years without drinking water and sewage systems, and three or more years without hospitals..."
- jldugger 5y agoSo, time to add a lifestraw and shovel to the go bag.
- bshipp 5y agoA 'go bag' containing enough food to survive months would be rather unwieldy to carry around. Hopefully it survives the initial earthquake in an accessible location so permit bugging out. However, its not much use if the house has collapsed or you're stuck at work.
- jldugger 5y agoFortunately, it just needs to get me east of I5, right?
- bshipp 5y agoAh, I misunderstood. I was thinking someone was trying to make it through to the other side without leaving. In the situation you're describing, you're certainly correct that it's easily carried insurance. Although I'd leave the shovel. The ground is already going to be so toxic that a little bit of poop on the way isn't going to even be noticed. Might as well save the weight in the pack.
- Asparagirl 5y agoYes, that article is a classic, in the Venn diagram intersection of "hard science explained well" and "creative ways to get historical data" and "both local and federal government failure to plan or address known issues" and "we were warned" and "absolute nightmare fuel". If/when the Cascadia superquake kicks off, everyone will be passing that link around, so you may as well read it now.
- redisman 5y agoWhat would you have them do? Have everyone move out of the PNW?
- Asparagirl 5y agoIt's not up to me, so please temper that impulse to shoot the messenger. But retrofitting or even rebuilding homes, schools, hospitals, bridges, etc. would be a great start. Proactively holding more mandatory earthquake drills, not just in schools. Adding Earthquake Early Warning devices to schools, office buildings, power stations, transit (which would slow down or stop the train before the shaking starts). Adding more seismic sensors to the currently very sparse Early Warning network, to get better data and therefore better predictions and more warning time to people living away from the epicenter; even ten or fifteen seconds of warning could prevent some injuries. More info: https://www.usgs.gov/programs/earthquake-hazards/early-warningshakealertr https://www.usgs.gov/programs/earthquake-hazards/early-warni... and https://www.shakealert.org/implementation/wea/ https://www.shakealert.org/implementation/wea/ and https://www.pnsn.org https://www.pnsn.org
- robocat 5y agoLook at what first world countries do just after major earthquakes. Do some of that. I live in Christchurch, New Zealand, and there were some obvious deficiencies in planning before the 2010 quake, and some obvious fixes were done after the 2010 quake. The main problem is convincing the cynical private and public that some prevention is worth paying for. Also the statistical victims are often not those that are making the financial choices.
- mutagen 5y agoMore accurately, these quakes are on a strike-slip fault (named the Blanco Fracture Zone) on the other side of the Juan de Fuca plate from the Cascadian Subduction Zone. This fault won't directly produce 'the big one' but this movement will be building pressure and tension in the subduction zone. https://www.npr.org/2021/12/08/1062365995/50-earthquakes-hit-off-the-oregon-coast-but-scientists-say-theyre-no-great-shake https://www.npr.org/2021/12/08/1062365995/50-earthquakes-hit... https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/juan-de-fuca-plate https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sci...
- floxy 5y ago>"megathrust" earthquakes on the west coast every 400-600 years. ...there are the full-fault (M9) and partial-fault quakes (M8) , and the smaller ones happen more frequently: https://projects.oregonlive.com/maps/earthquakes/timeline https://projects.oregonlive.com/maps/earthquakes/timeline >The Cascadia Subduction Zone has not produced an earthquake since 1700 and is building up pressure where the Juan de Fuca Plate is subsiding underneath the North American plate. Currently, scientists are predicting that there is about a 37 percent chance that a megathrust earthquake of 7.1+ magnitude in this fault zone will occur in the next 50 years. https://www.oregon.gov/OEM/hazardsprep/Pages/Cascadia-Subduction-Zone.aspx https://www.oregon.gov/OEM/hazardsprep/Pages/Cascadia-Subduc...
- ncmncm 5y agoExpectation is 2 years to restore full utility services throughout much of the region, after it happens. Months, in the highest priority spots.
- thedigitalone 5y agoThat particular swam of quakes isn't anything to worry about https://www.npr.org/2021/12/08/1062365995/50-earthquakes-hit-off-the-oregon-coast-but-scientists-say-theyre-no-great-shake https://www.npr.org/2021/12/08/1062365995/50-earthquakes-hit...
- q1w2 5y agoThis is the relevant bit... > The Blanco Fault Zone is a transform, or strike-slip, boundary; that means it's where tectonic plates slide along one another. The most dangerous and powerful faults are usually seen in subduction zones, where one plate dives beneath another. I was initially concerned about tsunamis - but this implies they don't occur on these types of fault lines. ...still... it's a good excuse to take a moment to think about preparedness. If you live on the coast - consider the most efficient inbound evacuation routes.
- miriam_catira 5y agoIt's still pretty epic to watch. https://earthquaketrack.com/r/coast-of-oregon/recent https://earthquaketrack.com/r/coast-of-oregon/recent ...and a good reminder to make sure your water heater / stacked laundry / fridge / etc is tied down properly...
- jedberg 5y agoIf you do feel a quake, don't forget to report it to the USGS! They need your data.
- divbzero 5y agoDon’t the USGS have seismographs for detecting earthquakes? Does human reporting add resolution or other information to their data?
- brenainn 5y agoWith a standardized report format the data can complement modelling of ground motion intensity caused by an earthquake, such as https://earthquake.usgs.gov/data/shakemap/ https://earthquake.usgs.gov/data/shakemap/
- gvhst 5y agohttps://earthquake.usgs.gov/data/dyfi/ https://earthquake.usgs.gov/data/dyfi/ USGS' "Did you Feel it Program" helps USGS figure out how seismic waves travel through the crust, which isn't uniform in density. Useful beyond seismographs.
- Turing_Machine 5y agoSure, they have seismographs, but they don't necessarily have full details on all the subsurface geology between you and the epicenter. Wave propagation can be complicated... depending on what's down there, the waves can intensified, dissipated, reflected... If (e.g.) everyone in a small area reports strong shaking, while those in surrounding areas report less, that can indicate a need for further investigation as to whether the area that experienced strong shaking poses a specific risk.
- jedberg 5y ago> Does human reporting add resolution or other information to their data? Yes, a lot. They only have so many seismographs. They ask a bunch of survey questions that get them a pretty good qualitative score of the experience in your exact location, and when merged together gives them a much better picture of how the waves propagated. Also they ask you questions about damage, which they can't get from anywhere else.
- belter 5y agoThis site ... integrated over Real time Solar Flares: https://www.spaceweatherlive.com/en/solar-activity/solar-flares.html https://www.spaceweatherlive.com/en/solar-activity/solar-fla... and random noise form Live Meteor: https://meteorscan.com/meteor-live.html https://meteorscan.com/meteor-live.html runs my Random Number Generator....
- g0ran 5y agoHow do you seed when there's no activity on all three fronts?
- belter 5y agoI fall back on real time neutrino event detection :-) https://gcn.gsfc.nasa.gov/amon_hese_events.html https://gcn.gsfc.nasa.gov/amon_hese_events.html
- nodicksplease 5y agoi hope they fix the browser back button
- doodlebugging 5y agoThis is a continuation of fairly normal activity along that plate boundary of the coast of Oregon. I have watched this whole area for a long time just for grins. I have another map that may put some of it into perspective. https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/?extent=30.82678,-140.09766&extent=46.87521,-104.94141&range=search&sort=largest&listOnlyShown=true&showUSFaults=true&baseLayer=street&search=%7B%22name%22:%22Search%20Results%22,%22params%22:%7B%22starttime%22:%222018-01-01%2000:00:00%22,%22endtime%22:%222021-12-08%2023:59:59%22,%22maxlatitude%22:45.429,%22minlatitude%22:32.621,%22maxlongitude%22:-114.214,%22minlongitude%22:-130.825,%22minmagnitude%22:4.5,%22orderby%22:%22magnitude%22%7D%7D https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/?extent=30.82678... That is a mouthful if you had to say it but it works out to be the locations of every event with a magnitude greater than 4.5 since Jan. 1, 2018 in the map area defined by the coordinates in the link (basically bounded on the east by the Nevada border, on the south by the California/Mexico border, on the north by the northernmost quake in Idaho, and on the west by the plate boundary where we see the new activity. Notice all the events along the California/Nevada border. Most of those are related to the July 2019 Ridgecrest earthquake which was a magnitude 7.1 event preceded about 34 hours earlier by a magnitude 6.4. Since that event, the faulted zone from Ridgecrest toward Mammoth Lakes and on to Carson City has seen increased activity that propagates from south to north and that has reactivated the east-west fault that runs east of Mono Lake into Nevada. Over time, probably the next few years, you will likely see similar quakes between Carson City and Medford, Oregon along that zone. That appears to be the eastern end of the plunging plate where we see the current quake swarm if you trace it out. (The edge may be near Yreka/McDoel CA area in the Cedar Mtn Fault System where the main faulting along the eastern Sierra/Cascades takes a more northerly turn. Remember that the red squiggles are mapped faults and that they are actually continuous in the subsurface along zones of faulting that follows the general squiggle trend. The latest activity on the transform fault offshore just continues that older trend (grey dots are events that have happened since Jan 1, 2018 and that are more than a month old) out to the western edge of that plate. Interesting stuff. I'm not a seismologist, just a geophysicist. This stuff interests me as I like to look for patterns in life. Don't use any of this in any official capacity. Follow the science and take everything in this post as a simple description of one person's observations of events and data in one geographic area that probably could be interpreted in multiple ways, even by the same person. As such this is meant to entertain, not to inform.
- samiur1204 5y agoNot really directly connected to the Cascadia Subduction Zone https://www.npr.org/2021/12/08/1062365995/50-earthquakes-hit-off-the-oregon-coast-but-scientists-say-theyre-no-great-shake#:~:text=%22The%20Blanco%20Fracture,Edition%20live%20blog https://www.npr.org/2021/12/08/1062365995/50-earthquakes-hit....
- actusual 5y agoWhy can't I use the back button on this website? It just goes back to the same site. I've noticed this behavior across other websites lately as well, is this a new design thing?
- ogennadi 5y agoBack button worked on desktop but not on mobile
- BenjiWiebe 5y agoFunny this gets posted today. This morning at 7:46 CST I experienced the closest/strongest earthquake yet, here in Kansas. It was a magnitude 4.3 approximately 20 miles away. Yes, I did file a DYFI report. :)
- h2odragon 5y agoSaw that dot on the map and had to go look at it. Careful there, the Crab people may be coming up for the holiday season.
- cc101 5y agoAs I recall it, transform "faults" are not really faults. They are the traces left between moving spreading centers. They can be weak zones and be the center of volcanic activity. Magma moving toward a potential eruption is my thought. It's been a long time since I was current in geology. I could be wrong. Our understanding of the world just keeps growing more complicated.