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Earthquake off Northern California
merger writes "A 7.0 earthquake (7.4 according to NOAA) occured off of the northern California coast occured at 7:50 p.m. PST triggering a tsunami warning (which was then downgraded to a tsunami bulletin). While searching Google News for information I learned about an earthquake preparedness study for the area which was just published today."
Anyone?!?!?! I have family that live there... I am going to call them now.
My hacked site
There was a 2+ hour Adelphia cable (tv+internet) outage after the earthquake. Friend who are in the bay area say they didn't feel any shaking. Were any undersea cables severed?
Nothing felt here, most people will not even know about it until tomorrow in our area.
Link to CNN article.
Plates shifted, relatively high richter scale, but keep in mind the Richter scale is *not* a linear scale. Nothing like the big tsunami a few months back.
Hell, I live in San Diego, I felt a 5.6 a few days ago. Shook my bed a bit, that was more of an event than this.
Towns like Crescent City are at huge risk, and the city and state are trying to compensate with warning systems (that have been improved since the tsunami in the Indian Ocean). While some buildings have been constructed to withstand tsunamis (the national park headquarters was designed as a "flow through" building so tsunami waves will just break out the first floor windows and flow through the building), the best advice is to climb. Get to high ground as soon as you feel the earth shake. Don't wait for a tsunami warning--just climb!
Also, don't go back to the ocean until you know for sure that it's safe to do so. Apparently, many of the deaths in the 1960s tsunami were a result of the mayor and several other people going down onto a pier to suvery the damage. Because tsunamis are really sets of high waves and sea levle changes, the next set of waves washed them away.
One more interesting tidbit--most tsunami deaths aren't caused by the water itself. Instead, what happens is that the water crashes into buildings destroying them. Additional waves then take all of that debris and use it like battering rams to destroy more buildings. It's the debris that most often causes human deaths and damage in the city. Perhaps a good case for building more tsnuami-safe buildings?
Actually the quake was not in the proximity of a subduction zone, hence why no tsunami resulted.
There are no karma whores, only moderation johns
Interesting that this happened. Here is an article that was published just yesterday talking about exactly this topic. I guess the subduction zone reads the Chronicle.
http://pasadena.wr.usgs.gov/step/
If you look now though, there are two areas of fairly high risk.
Don't use this map for anything important, like planning picnics.
Still, I check this every day, and I am suprised that I was given a reference to test its accuracy so soon.
Still, it has updated today in light of the events.
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
So earlier, when this was first breaking news, my roommate got a phone call from her friend Erin about a possible tsunami warning. My first thought? "I'll check slashdot; if it's actually going to kill us (especially as we're in Southern California) slashdot will have an article on it".
that you had to post to slashdot before calling them to see if they were ok.
The earthquake was caused by the impact of the news that Sarge is finally out. (It took several days before that news truly sank in.)
According to a friend who is a geologist, the quake was on a slip fault, not a thrust falt, and therefore could not produce a tsunami. And, since it was something like 70 miles offshore, the shaking itself didn't do any real damage, either.
Not 'off topic'
The article is not 'news for nerds' and isn't 'news' because it's over 5 hours old.
too bad a tsunami can't hit places like Utah or Tennessee.
Nothing here either
Living in good 'ol so cal, I have never heard of a tsunami warning, so that was fun to see flash across my screen while I was watching TV.
Was hoping to hear that Petaluma was washed several miles east, but no such luck.
Don't you mean.. BIZZARO!
What's that? the quake was up north you say?
That's it. No more LSD on weeknights.
quakes: http://quake.wr.usgs.gov/recenteqs/
/. geting 2-300 500 server errors a day.
you can see this big one off to the upper left, but 'quakes are no big thing around these parts - just look, we get ~hundreds a day; similar to
do you have shinyfeet?
...an' I don't wanna swim. /cue_guitar_solo
Surf's Up, Dude!!
--Residential Interior Design
It's just another day in California :) Truly there was nothing major about it.
In this case the same thing is happening. You'll note in the list that there have already been a number of aftershocks over the past few hours.
They also have a RSS feed, so presumably you could create your own tsunami warning system.
---- It won't be as bad as you fear or as good as you hope, but it will take twice as long as you plan.
Yeah, it always good to joke about events that can and do kill hundreds of thousands. It's even better if you can do it as soon as the story is published because some kindred spirit with mod points might even spend one on your comment, thereby giving you your 15 minutes of fame.
I hope that you're as keen to repeat your hilarous gag when death and destruction on the scale of last year's Asian tsunami hits closer to where you live.
Sorry, but I hardly think that this is the sort of thing that you make light of, especially as we've all had a recent reminder of just how deadly offshore (and even onshore) earthquakes can be.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Dolphins living off the Pacific coast don't have phones. But one in captivity somewhere appearently has internet access and learned english.
Time to pack your bags and move to Kansas?
This earthquake didn't really rattle us very much locally (Eureka CA area), but it triggered the tsunami warning from 2001 to 2113 PDT, and was fully lifted at 2155 PDT. The warning came via email to those of us who subscribe to the Tsunami Warning Center emails. However, the email wasn't sent out until about 10 minutes after the quake, and didn't set off the Emergency Broadcast System on the radio for about another 5 minutes after the emails. Folks, in 15 minutes, a Tsunami could have already happened locally. Even though the watch/warning was broadcast, most locals just shrugged it off, or didn't even hear about it until I mentioned it to them over an hour later. The local supermarket has been promoting Emergency Awareness lately, but in view of the reaction of the people, we really aren't prepared should the epicenter of a 7+ quake happen under our feet, or should a Tsunami actually hit. Fortunately, I live inland far enough and high enough to be above a wave line similar to that of the Indian Ocean tsunami of last December. But I don't live far enough away to not have to clean up bodies of non-prepared apathetic persons who become victims should one occur. I did live right on the beach, previously, and had an evacuation package and procedure ready. Others along the Coast were ready, but not enough of them. Everyone should really do a self-preparedness check to see if they are indeed ready for such an emergency. This includes those who live in earthquake, tornado, flooding, mountains (slides and fires), and hurricane areas. Prepare yourself and your neighbors today, should you have to help each other tomorrow.
Okay, its "tornadoes" and Utah doesn't get tornadoes as the Convective Available Potential Energy is not enough.
CAPE is measure in J/kg... A redistribution of energy per unit mass. Any geek would know that.
Helicity is not also high enough. Measure in m^2/s^2. The tendency for fluid to travel in a helicial flow... i.e. shit that be inportant to tornadogenesis.
Yes! I listen to NYC Speedcore and do math at 3AM. I suggest you try it too.
I was distracted by my masturbating when it happened, so I didn't notice the earthquake. Damn, why does this always happen...oh wait, never mind.
Here in Japan they have the very sensible system of reporting not only (and not even mostly) the energy released at the epicenter, but most prominently the expected effects at any area affected by the earthquake.
They have a seven-point scale, with 1 being that you only just feel the quake if you are lying down or otherwise sensitive; to 7 being that nonhardened buildings collapse, and many expected injuries and deaths. Quake reports are usually in the form of maps with this info overlayed.
For most of the public, that is the kind of info you want when an earthquake has occurred, rather than the intensity at the origin. It tells you much clearer if it's time to worry about friends and relatives or not.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Slashdotters seem to think so, as long is it doesn't affect Americans. every "foreign" disaster eleicts a bunch of ethnic/outsourcing (if in Asia or particularly India) jokes, all modded "Funny". Make similar jokes about American deaths and it's an instant flamebait/troll mod. He might get away with it here since no one seems to have died.
" Aleutians rocked by series of big quakes
The countless quakes started short after midnight. The biggest one, with a preliminary magnitude of 6.9, struck at 9:10 a.m. Tuesday. There were reports of items falling off shelves in Adak, about 175 miles from the epicenter.
The series of quakes occurred where the Pacific and North American plates collide. Most were in the range of 4.5 and 5.7."
Seems to be a relation.
KoA
Eagle crashes into living room of a Ketchikan home
God is angry over the Michael Jackson verdict!
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
That was a rare case. Knives should NOT go near penises.
Nothing felt here. Roger.
In this world nothing is certain but death, taxes and flawed car analogies.
I don't think that the person who's comment I replied to is American (as in USA) but rather Brazilian, given the .br TLD of his website. Nevertheless, that doesn't negate the fact that joking about this topic is in poor taste, given recent events.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Although it wasn't nearly large enough to cause any damage, the shaking was signifigant enough to disturb the Hanford LIGO site. Took about 3-4 hours for ground motion to calm down enough that the mirrors could be used again. Most of the people working on the Interferometers decided it was a good time to head out and grab dinner.
And for those that don't know what LIGO is, look at http://www.ligo-wa.caltech.edu/ And check out the Einstein@home project while you're there.
Courtesy of the US Geological Survey right here. Plenty of info that I don't understand, plus pretty maps!
Fact is, routine circumcision was instituted for a completely spurious reason, and one that most people would not now even consider desirable. (It was believed to reduce masturbation. The opposite is in fact true.) Modern rationalization for continuing the practice are different, but the only reason they exist is because there's this huge population of mutilated men to study. No doubt if for some reason female circumcision were to become common you could find plenty of justification for continuing it long after whatever initial stupid reason you had for doing it in the first place fell out of favor.
The US is the only industrialized nation where routine circumcisions are performed at birth. It is a surgery, and there are risks associated, especially when they're performed by doctors. (Jewish mohels are typically better at it, with lower complication rates and less pain to the recipient.) The benefits, such as they are, simply do not justify the risks or the undesirable side effects.
And the brethren went away edified.
That's not a "fact", but I share the opinion. I was just pointing out the double standard that usually applies here. For instance, the bushfire in Canberra got a lot of "barbecue" jokes. Despite dozens being burnt alive few seemed to think this was inappropriate.
Nothin here either (Newark, CA)... My mom yelled at me from downstairs. My friend who lives a few doors down said a bunch of people called him freakin out tellin him to get out of the house. A lot of people I know were disappointed that nothing happened. I live about a mile from water, maybe less. Oddly the only thing on my mind at the time was how bad it was gonna suck for the rest of the country if a tsunami took out all of our democrats and tech companies.
I am wondering if an African American little girl would be kidnapped would that make front page news? Or are lives of the people in Darfur somehow worth less? Anyway just a thought, probably will get modded as a troll or offtopic ...
Well, the Asian tsunami that killed more than half a million people wasn't even six months ago. To use your example, how tasteless would it have been to make light of planes hitting buildings six months after September 11th, 2001?
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
I am aware of young boy that didn't have his small toe amputated at birth, and when he was 13 he cut his toe on a rusty piece of metal and almost died from an infection. Clearly children should have their small toe amputated.
I don't know what your point is. I said I thought making jokes aout disasters was tasteless.
Don't go panic tomorrow if you read a "new" tsunami warning here.
Here in Santa Cruz (central coast) we didn't feel anything (heck, I didn't know there had been an earthquake until reading the story), so the epicenter was far enough from the coast to do any real damage. Despite this, an earthquake that's a 7 on the richter scale is scary--most of Santa Cruz was destroyed in the loma prieta 15 years ago, and that was a 7.1.
In the beginning the universe was created. This made a lot of people very angry and is widely considered as a bad move.
and i'm in crescent city...just 90 miles from the san andreas fault...they said if there were to be a tsunami to take out our city it'd be at that fault and a "bump" earthquake or something, instead of the slip 'n slide quake that occured. part of our town evacuated. same thing happend in 1964...'cept a tsunami actually happend here.
Slashdot's getting better at posting news while it's new... this one's only about 3 or 4 hours out of date. Meanwhile Fark, a comedy site, had the newsflash up while the tsunami warning was still in effect. I know where I'm going for my news...
Am I geographically lost, living in Atlanta, GA? I thought California had coasts facing mostly West and South. I think "in the Pacific ocean West of Northern California" would be a bit clearer. California, to my knowledge, has no Northern Coast. So watch out for them land-bound tsunamis or the terrorists have won.
I'll be your candy shop of infinite deliciousity if you'll be my discotheque of endless rump-shaking.
Ya know, there do exist Americans who think that folks who get up in arms over jokes about (say) the Twin Towers are largely uptight assholes. Quite a few of us, actually (though I'd avoid such jokes were I visiting New York, just to avoid offending local sensibilities).
Don't judge the group by the vocal (readily offended) minority. There are plenty of Americans who don't mind jokes about our own tragedies -- what better way to get it behind than with humor?
I used to joke that insurance companies didn't care about the very imminent geological dangers that face California, because, they reckon, once the big one hits, there won't be anyone left in California to make any claims.
On the other hand, it's been pointed out to me, semi-recently, that most Californians do not have earthquake insurance.
I dunno about you, but that, with the combination of homes which average $509k, is a source of worry for me. Any Californians able to comment on earthquake/tsunami insurance?
... at "work". :)
My point was that whether or not it is tasteless isn't even up for discussion.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
People, mod this one up! You're wasting your mod points.
The USGS map referenced in this "False Alarm" comment suggests that the earthquake was relatively near a subduction zone. Is there a geologist in the house?
Just wait for the dupe...
[Dateline: So Yesterday - Boyland, CA] Scientists at CalTech are now saying that the 7.0 off the Northern California coast was caused by the collective 2.0's that happened throughout the state, in the pants of those hearing the Michael Jackson verdict.
--- Shoo-be-doo-be-do-wop-say-what-yeah!
>Earthquake off Northern California
Hear, hear Allah is knocking on your door Gitmo torturer-dogs! Even Mother Earth cannot tolerate the sins of crusaders any longer and wants yankee to be shaken off its surface!
Slashdot is "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters."
Reporting on Tsunamis is nothing more than sensationalism for a site like this. This article should definately be moderated as off-topic.
Which brings up a point. We moderate posts, we even moderate how other people moderate. Let's get the ability to moderate articles. This way we will stop getting "News for non-nerds. Stuff that doesn't matter."
Looking for a job?
Want your resume written professionally?
DON'T USE TUNAREZ!!!
http://www.consrv.ca.gov/CGS/rghm/quakes/eq_chron. htm
Since the 1700s, not a single earthquake in California that was over 6.5 has caused a tsunami there.
The media is so shit, scare scare scare scare scare, controlling US citizens with a blanket of fear :(
The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
Something I noticed after the 5.2 quake in southern California, is that there was a tremendous number of temblors immediately following, but they were all focused around the site of the original quake. I had to wonder how much stress was building up along the fault line, to the north and south.
As I type this, I see >800 quakes on the California/Nevada quake map, and I wonder how much more stress is building up around Silicon Valley. (Yes, I live and work in the Valley.)
I suspect that big slips north and south increase the odds of a slip in between. Are there any geologists out there who can verify this?
Two seperate mild tremors felt near Mumbai and North-east India.
http://in.rediff.com/news/2005/jun/14quake.htm
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
While I'm not trying to minimize the effects an erthquake would have anywhere in the world, why is it that since the last tsunami every single earthquake may trigger a tsunami too??? Hey, you might as well get a Tsunami in Kansas pretty soon!! Come on! ... or is it more like a "ass-covering" thing.. you know "Well, i hate to say I told you so"
Tell me that you were really kidding.
In case you were serious: the "logarithmic" in the Richter scale *does not* mean that the function increases as the logarithm. It means that the *scale* increases proportionally to the logarithm.
That is, a Richter magnitude of 6.0 is approximately equivalent to the explosion of a megaton of TNT, whereas a magnitude of 7.0 is roughly like *32* megaton. Another datum: a magnitude of 8.0 is about as much as 1 *gigaton*
Do you see the pattern here? Small changes in the Richter scale mean huge changes in the intensity of the earthquake.
It's a perfectly good observation, it's just pointless. There's a lot of shit goes on in the world and you can't get emotionally involved in the suffering of every person. How much people are insterested depends how relevant things are to them. Either because it's in their area and there's a risk to them or it's in the local area and it's plausible that they could make a difference.
There was a tsunami in my beer.. damn earthquakes...
Oh and re not eating shellfish: we have fridges now, thanks.
[1] Consider where the two main cocksnipping religions originated.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I live on the west coast of Vancouver island, Ucluelet, one of the areas that fell under the warning and we go absolutely no notice of it. They recently installed a new warning siren for the township but we didn't hear a thing. We didn't see any broadcasts about it on the local news channel either. Not until one hour after the warning was canceled did we recieve a phone call telling us about the warning. I messaged some of my friends to see if they heard anything about it and none of them heard about it. Its great knowing that when one really happens, they'll try and warn us after we are all dead.
You need to lighten up, people die all the time in all sorts of circumstances and there is nothing wrong in treating such events with humour.
The area is a caldera, from what I can tell, and it looks like it's ready to blow !!!!!!
1.9 2005/06/14 21:19:08 38.803N 122.814W 2.9 1 km ( 1 mi) NW of The Geysers, CA
3.9 2005/06/14 19:57:00 38.848N 122.823W 3.6 6 km ( 4 mi) NNW of The Geysers, CA
1.7 2005/06/14 18:46:08 38.832N 122.799W 1.3 4 km ( 2 mi) N of The Geysers, CA
1.6 2005/06/14 09:30:10 38.814N 122.809W 4.1 2 km ( 1 mi) N of The Geysers, CA
2.3 2005/06/14 07:32:45 38.822N 122.810W 4.6 3 km ( 2 mi) N of The Geysers, CA
1.0 2005/06/14 03:45:04 37.249N 122.009W 5.8 2 km ( 1 mi) NW of Monte Sereno, CA
1.9 2005/06/13 18:38:38 37.647N 122.043W 5.6 3 km ( 2 mi) E of Hayward, CA
1.2 2005/06/13 14:58:03 37.926N 122.297W 5.1 1 km ( 1 mi) NNE of El Cerrito, CA
1.9 2005/06/13 14:48:43 38.830N 122.808W 2.8 4 km ( 2 mi) N of The Geysers, CA
1.3 2005/06/13 06:56:32 38.176N 121.979W 5.0 8 km ( 5 mi) SSE of Suisun City, CA
1.7 2005/06/13 06:13:25 38.819N 122.798W 3.8 2 km ( 1 mi) NNE of The Geysers, CA
2.4 2005/06/13 06:09:21 38.819N 122.797W 4.0 2 km ( 2 mi) NNE of The Geysers, CA
1.5 2005/06/13 03:55:00 38.720N 122.339W 7.4 19 km (12 mi) NNE of Angwin, CA
1.4 2005/06/13 03:11:26 38.795N 122.829W 3.0 2 km ( 1 mi) W of The Geysers, CA
1.7 2005/06/12 19:41:58 38.810N 122.790W 2.1 2 km ( 1 mi) NE of The Geysers, CA
1.9 2005/06/12 16:55:24 37.303N 122.096W 5.9 5 km ( 3 mi) WSW of Cupertino, CA
2.0 2005/06/12 14:25:53 38.792N 122.749W 4.4 5 km ( 3 mi) E of The Geysers, CA
1.7 2005/06/12 11:23:44 38.827N 122.799W 3.4 3 km ( 2 mi) NNE of The Geysers, CA
1.7 2005/06/12 11:21:42 38.823N 122.828W 3.3 3 km ( 2 mi) NW of The Geysers, CA
1.4 2005/06/12 07:19:53 38.788N 122.970W 4.8 4 km ( 3 mi) ESE of Cloverdale, CA
1.5 2005/06/12 02:35:46 38.706N 122.362W 2.1 16 km (10 mi) NNE of Angwin, CA
1.9 2005/06/12 00:28:32 38.804N 122.809W 3.0 1 km ( 0 mi) NNW of The Geysers, CA
1.7 2005/06/11 18:33:55 38.796N 122.754W 1.6 5 km ( 3 mi) E of The Geysers, CA
2.6 2005/06/11 10:22:38 38.825N 122.825W 2.7 3 km ( 2 mi) NNW of The Geysers, CA
2.1 2005/06/11 08:18:13 38.821N 122.793W 3.8 3 km ( 2 mi) NNE of The Geysers, CA
1.9 2005/06/11 08:03:00 38.823N 122.800W 3.9 3 km ( 2 mi) NNE of The Geysers, CA
Here are a couple more helpful sites:
http://www.planetquake.com/
http://www.quaker.org/
there will be earthquakes in diverse places with the seas and waves roaring and men's hearts failing them from fear. When you see these things begin to happen, look up, for your redemption draws near.
My former wife is also a /.'er and lives in the Arcata bottoms, and she emailed me that they are fine, and it's no big deal.
No, the amusement is in realizing that if the earthquake caused a break underwater, that it's not going to be fixed in ~2 hrs, thus indicating the cluelessness of the question pondered.
Why? That underwater link that guy mentioned might still be broken, if was indeed broken they probably activated an auxiliary/backup link to route their traffic through and are still working on the severed cable. I rely on a connection via a series of undersea links that have been severed a few times over the last few years by anything from fishermen to mechanical diggers and underwater sand-mining operations. Over here it rarely takes the local telecom more than half an hour to start routing traffic through backup connections but then of course we don't get as quite as many earthquakes here as they do in California
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
I call bullshit on your statement that "most of Santa Cruz was destroyed in the loma prieta 15 years ago".
I lived there, and I have plenty of photos and video that show that damange, but in NO WAY was most of the town destroyed.
Fuckin wanker!
end up funny.
I suppose the insensity scale would be the inverted intensity scale. They probably use it in the antipodes.
Either that or it's something to do with drinking games.
KFG
seriously - on UK news channels, BBC etc, they always quote 'earthquake of strength X on the Richter scale'. personally i find this extremely annoying since it's a completely superfluous figure-of-speech - unless there's some other scale which people use to measure earthquakes.
anyone know different?
The Geysers quakes are no big deal, that area has been active for decades.
Get some perspective man.
When you're posting something that can affect people's lives, *please* check the facts. I heard the tsunami warning being recended over the radio at around 9:30 PM PDT. That's 5 1/2 hours before this story was posted.
There's no reason to create fear or panic.
(And for anyone that's interested why a californian's up posting at 3AM, I just saw Batman Begins. It was remarkably good, although I'm tired of watching ninjas as bad guys [oh, and the ninja is from JAPAN people, not Bhutan...] but i digress)
(reference to last summer, when Miami-Dade filed more claims for hurricane damage than the counties that were actually hit by the storm).
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
Didnt feel anything here either. Our dog was fairly upset for no reason though.
This is just a small nit-pick with this assertion. Sorry for dragging it out as I have.
I don't know where you're getting your information from, but I also have a good friend who's a geophysicist, and I know a lot of others in the Earth Sciences department next door to my own. (We have a lot of major earthquake-causing fault lines in New Zealand, and it's a popular place for geophysicists from around the world to hang out.) If someone knows more then I'd welcome a correction, but my understanding is that earthquakes are still almost entirely unpredictible with today's knowledge.
We can look at the history of any site and calculate an average earthquake frequency, just as your site averages every 200 years. If you look a short time into the future, it'll probably remain an average of about 200 years.
But in Earth science terms, a "short" time is millions of years. When the frame of reference is so large, attempting to predict events accurately to hundreds of years is hopeless. An historical average of a big quake every 200 years really doesn't tell us anything useful about the immediate future of a site in terms comparable with a human lifetime.
I've heard people argue about how the stress is released after an earthquake and there's a relation. I think this is a very common misconception that seems intuitive, but doesn't really match the facts as we know. All the geophysicists I've spoken to have claimed that this is mostly fiction, though.
The biggest problem with this approach is that there's no clear and accurate way to even estimate, let alone measure, how much stress there was in the first place. Most of what we can guess simply comes from analysing historical records, and accurate records often don't even exist beyond the past few hundred years, if even that. You might have thought that 7th magnitude quake was big and released a lot of stress, until an 8th magnitude quake suddenly releases ten times as much energy, with the earlier quake having made a negligible dent in its force.
If you look historically at the quakes in your area, you'll probably see that they're not set at all evenly. Even if you've gone for 300 years without an earthquake, chances are it's about as likely that you'll get a big one tommorrow as it is that you'll get a big one 1000 years from now. Perhaps you'll get 3 or 4 big ones in the next 3 or 4 decades.
This isn't to say that it's not worth preparing for, though. If you live on a fault, chances are that you'll at least get moderate earthquakes, and over a wide enough population, it's quite likely that some part of it will be hit every so often. (The media doesn't normally report about all of the places that didn't have earthquakes.) Good building standards and response strategies, for instance, are the reason that there may only be a few tens or hundreds of casualties in a well-off country, whereas it might be hundreds of thousands or millions of casualties for an equivalent quake in a third world country.
I wouldn't bank on it unless Steve Jobs issues the tsunami warning himself.
joking about this topic is in poor taste
You, sir, are stating something obvious, but draw the wrong conclusion.
Yes, joking about it is poor taste. And yes, jokes are still OK.
In fact, it is well known that humans that feel awkward and uncomfortable about a subject use humour to let off some steam. This, sir, means that the people making tasteless jokes have compassion for the victims. There is nothing wrong with them making a joke to ease the mood.
Some people will have what you think is poor taste. Get over it.
This little boy's "hat" was too small to wash under, from what I was told. The boy would not allow the parents to clean it, and would not do it himself until the infection made it clear why. Apparently, after a couple of years of washing appropriately, it's still painful.
I'd be a little less cynical of the "do away with circumcision" concept if that site were raising the same fuss about getting pediatricians to educate parents.
As it is, it just looks like they are complaining because it takes away the excitement of sex, and I don't think that can be argued in the same breath as arguing that it doesn't reduce masturbation.
how many died? how many will die during the next 24 hours after the impact?
Far as I know, and I am not a specialist in the field but there are two mega quakes that are in line to happen at some stage.
The oceanic plate off northern california / Oregon/seattle and the large plates in the area surrounding turkey, one running right through Istanbul.
In terms of the mega quake, the tsunami is bad, but from the data I looked at, the frequncy of vibration when hitting the landmass would be large and ongoing. Its the ongoing/changing nature of the waves travelling through the ground that would bring down the damaged buildings.
In the atlantic area there is a large landmass waiting to slide, and the potential there is for a larger disaster than the recent cataclysm in indonesia.
Sometimes we belieev we are impregnable and capable of handling any issue, at some stage, nature is as going to send us a reminder we live on a volatile and changing planet.
If they are monitoring that ocena plate and it looks like trouble, they should be moving people away from the coast NOW. There is enough evidence that - if its the plate I am thinking of, there may well be serious issues ahead..
We`re all equal
Hi Roger!
You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.
It has to be pretty urgent if they post the news without bothering to capitalize first :D
Against stupidity the Gods themselves contend in vain.
notice how the 1994 northridge quake occurred following a notorious el nino season. there is well documented cases where people dumped waste water in a fault and it lead to earthquakes.
now think of the deluge they received last winter.
makes you think eh?
it wont affect me since i recently relocated to miami because the tech job market was terrible with downward pressure on wages with upward financial pressure on everything else. it was move or go bankrupt. but all of my family still lives there and i really hope im wrong.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cixel
There was a earthquake in Chile on monday, it was 7.9 on the Richter scale
bulletin with some more details.
Remember, there is a connection of these kind of events along Pacific coasts, mostly due to interactions between Nazca plate (north of Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia) and the Pacific Plate (Japan, EEUU west coast)
(obligatory IANAG disclaimer, G = Geologist)
Not all news media across the world are like that - I've noticed that media in certain Asian countries and Europe have a much wider coverage of world events, unlike the American media which is pro-American-infotainment centric.
If you use a log graph (non-linear on one or both axis, distances go as the log function), then you would get a straight line.
Consider the data you gave. I don't know if it's right, but it sounds ballpark. You could curve-fit this data to the equation:
E = 1 MT*2^(5*(R -6))
Where E is the energy in MegaTons (MT) and R is the Richter magnitude. Get the equation unitless by dividing by 1 MT:
E/MT = 2^(5*(R-6))
Now, take the log of both sides:
Log(E/MT) = 5*(R-6)*log(2)
So we do have a linear relation between the log(E/MT) and R. The slope of the line is 5*log(2) and the intercept is -30*log(2). If we graph log(E/MT) vs R, we have a staight line. Conversely, we could use log paper (logarithmic scale on y axis) and plot the original equation. It would be a straight line as well.
'it always good to joke about events that can and do kill hundreds of thousands'
To quote Mel Brooks:
"Tragedy is when I get a paper cut on my finger. Comedy is when you fall down an open manhole and die."
Is the phone system going to be slashdotted now? That would be a first!
and I assure you that it is just natures way of purging parasites.
How tasteless would it have been to make light of planes hitting buildings six months after September 11th, 2001?
That depends on the joke, and the listener. I wouldn't describe all such jokes within that time range as automatically in poor taste, though. Laughing about something is, to many, an effective way to numb the pain.
Oh come off it. Humor is a healthy way of dealing with tragedy. If you get offended that's your choice. Moping about isn't going to bring anyone back, and I prefer to smile.
Not so long ago I lost my dad to heart disease, a perpetual natural disaster that kills more people than 10 WTC attacks every month. And you know what, I still laugh when Homer has a heart attack. If I were to die a horrible horrible death, I'd at least hope someone could get a giggle out of it.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
How come this guys keep stating that as there are different plates, quakes have no relatioin. I live in Chilea and we had 2 mayor earthquakes just yesterday @ northern Chile, and another much smaller 1500 miles south @ the capital, and yet thay state there is no relations as plates are diferent. Now this. I'm not specialist, but NO ONE can be that blind to just state "there is no relation between them". Seismology is not an exact nor completely understood science, so at best they can say "As of our extreemly limited knowledge, we can't find a relation, but it's clear that there IS a relation between them, we'll study what that relation can be.". I'd just like to state that all ppl leaving in what is known as the pacific ring of fire do share a relation. The point is that some studies are still in their basics, wheather, astrophysics, seismology, etc. And even though there are big advances, no one can be considered an "all knowing" expert. At most (at this moment) they can be considered as ppl who study the subject, but has a looooooong way to go yet.
What's that, you say? You never had a Volcano?
Then you realize that it is due anytime now!
Are you aware of the little boy whose penis was accidently amputated by the circumcisionist? Neither male nor female circumsision is "generally advisable". It was popularized in the US in the early 1900's as a "cure" for masturbation, and has been kept going by FUD and ignorance.
-- Saeed al-Sahaf
Every morning my mom comes down into the basement, shakes my bed and says, "Get up and go get a job you lazy slug!" I'm willing to bet I'm not alone here.
Not to offend anyone, because even most news agencies get this wrong, but the Richter scale was long ago deprecated for use in large quakes. You can check out the information on the Richter scale at Wikipedia, but the gist of it is that the Richter scale didn't really relate to the physical characteristics of the quake in an identifiable way.
The new system that geologists use is Moment Magnitude, which is more physically identifiable. However, it'll have values fairly similar old familiar Richter. The real benefit is that it doesn't have a cutoff limit, beyond which all earthquakes simply fall to the same value.
Just to give people a feel for the intensity of the quake, every step on the moment magnitude scale is an increase in energy by a factor of 10^1.5. Consider that a 7.0's factor is then x10^10.5, which is a pretty damn huge amount of energy, about 31622776602 times more than a magnitude 1 quake.
Slashdot. It's Not For Common Sense
Arizona Bay!
Since the 1700s, not a single earthquake in California that was over 6.5 has caused a tsunami there.
There have been 8 California quakes that have generated tsunamis. Though the San Andreas Fault isn't liable to generate a tsunami because it slips to the right instead of up/down, some California quakes are able to generate undersea landslides. Click on the image on this Mbari page and you'll see a substantial scar left by a landslide off the Santa Barbara Coast.
Secondly, yesterday's quake was north of Cape Mendocino which is at the southern end of a series of subduction faults that head up to Alaska. Unlike transform faults, subduction faults can, and do, cause tsunamis.
If anything, I think the media is ignoring some of the risks. Portions of Monterey Bay have very steep submarine walls. A 7.0 quake centered in the bay could generate a landslide that would send a tsunami towards the low-lying regions in Monterey and Carmel. The best advice for anyone in California who feels a quake while they're near the shore is to climb right away. Don't wait for the media to tell you there's a risk because the warning will come too late. Most of the time climbing will be unnecessary, but sometimes it'll save someone's life.
http://www.iris.edu/seismon/
You're British, right? Would you joke about the Omagh bombing with someone from that town, Hillsborough with a die-hard Liverpool fan, the Paddington rail crash with someone who was on that train, or someone from Dumblane about the horror that occured there?
I'm guessing you wouldn't. And I'm guessing you wouldn't dream of doing it with anyone while the events were hitting the headlines. Joking about potential life and death events as they are occuring, as the poster to whom I originally replied had done, is tasteless.
I agree, given proper time for reflection, joking about tragedy can be a good thing - part of the healing process, even - but there are always certain subjects that are taboo unless you know your audience intimately and/or they are prepared for it. Try joking about the Holocaust with someone who's Jewish, for example, and see what kind of reaction you get.
Laughter is good medicine but laughing whilst people could be dying is callous to say the least.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
We didn't feel anything here in San Francisco, and I guess the reason for that is because it was in the real northern California as opposed to "central California"-- I hear the people who live in Eureka, Humboldt, &c are sort of touchy about that...
What energy units are those numbers in?
A blog about stuff.
I was in the Safeway in Eureka reading a mag and started to feel like I needed alot of sleep and some suger. You know the feeling,wobbly. Anyways people were running out of the store and my wife was out in the car trying to call me to get my butt out to. Seems that everything outside including the car was swaying.
We immediatly got home looked at usgs.gov and decided a 7.4 was worth a drive up th nearest tall hill. It was quite weird seeing all sorts of people parked on Fickle Hill watching the bay. Thank God nothing came rolling in much of this area is at or below sealevel.
Si vis pacem, para bellum! For evil to succeed good men need only do nothing!
Keep in mind that moment magnitude is just a convenient way to talk about seismic moment the way we would talk about the classic Richter scale magnitude.
So it's dimensionless, if I recall correctly (and wikipedia confirms this).
I suggest you read the wikipedia articles for more information. I am way out of my depth talking about geology. I only remember a few tidbits of facts from an introductory college class.
Slashdot. It's Not For Common Sense
didn't cure me. I wonder if that's why my glasses are so thick.
The world according to SComps
No, circumcision is performed because nobody likes a cheese-dick.
An earth quake in california can cause a tsunami accross the sea.
point in fact it could cause the energy to flow away from california, cause a tsunami in the other side of the ocean, and then come back causingf a Tsunami in California.
Also, california earthquakes have caused a tsunami since 1700 hundred. However, Tsunami does not equal life threatening wave.
If you know anything about the geology of the California coast, then you would know there are several areas that, if collapsed, will cause a signifigant wave.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The fact is that it's a almost a dead cert a big one will happen sometime in the next 50 years on some faults. For example, the probability for the Big One on the Hayward Fault (nearest where I live), the northern half of which is directly under Berkeley and Oakland, is usually expressed as "80% chance in the next 20 years." The interval between big earthquakes in California is definitely a bell-shaped curve, obviously with a constraint on zero and lots of heteroskedacity, but it's pretty reasonable to make some assumptions and come up with "X% in N years".
I'm active in the volunteer emergency services in my neighborhood. We don't care if The Big One happens tomorrow, or whether the chance is one in 10000 or one in 50000 for a particular day ro week or month. What matters is, over the lifetime of any new of recently built structure, and in my lifetime personally, it's fairly certain. The 94 Northridge quake drastically changed building codes and requirements, so since all but the most recently built structures near the fault will be damaged or destroyed by such a quake, this statistic is extremely useful is motivating people to upgrade their structures, make contingency and recovery plans, etc.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
from the last earthquake: Insurance companies either:
1) suddenly go out of business and there is no way to file a claim.
2) Lie
3) Call you a liar
4) at best offer a fraction of the damage and force you to sue to get what they should pay
5) try not to pay for damage that is caused by things effected by the earthquake.
example:
Scum Insurance person: "well, that damage was cause when the telephone pole fell on your house, so it doesn't cover that."
You: "But it was the earthQuake that made if fall!"
Scum Insurance person: "too bad, you can always arbitrate. here are the steps you need to do to arbitrate..oh and we won't even pay the portion we said we owe intil after arbitration."
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Most slashdotters have never had their beds shaken, so you might want to explain what it's like.
I'll have you know that I am wild enough to have bounced on my bed once or twice as if it were a trampoline. I am perfectly aware of what a shaking bed feels like.
Of course, the last time around the wooden centre support gave way, and I had to pull it off the floor, lift up the mattresses, and reinsert it correctly.:)
Is this a sigs-optional kind of place? 'Cause I am totally down with that if you know what I mean.
" Yeah, it always good to joke about events that can and do kill hundreds of thousands"
actually, it is. It helps a person deal with the stress.
"I hope that you're as keen to repeat your hilarous gag when death and destruction on the scale of last year's Asian tsunami hits closer to where you live."
people would joke then as well. It's a normal response. Americans joke about America too.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
In the 60s, a tsunami caused by a quake off of Alaska killed a dozen or so people in Crescent City.
Within the past half hour they said on CNN that Cresent City suffered a tsunami fromn a seaquake in the 1950s that some of the residents remembered.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Out in the Southern California desert, I think it was a 5.2 and we felt it in Orange County.
Did earthquake season start early this year?
There is and it is a subduction zone - that's why the Cascade volcanos are up that end. The faultlines off the southern part of the CA coast are strike/slip - no volcanos.
who WAS tripping balls when the northridge quake happened in 1994. His friend thought it was armageddon and he thought they were being invaded by aliens. Afterwards my friend went out into the street to see what was going on only to have a really large dog run by him and he flipped out.
So yeah, drugs are bad mmkay?
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cixel
I pay $113/year to the California Earthquake Authority to insure a two-story house just outside of Sacramento, Calif. Not prime earthquake territory, but not "very expensive" either.
a few hundred feet high, say, and maybe a few miles long, at right angles to the slip fault.
Then a slip occurs, and that land mass includng that ridge moves, say, 30 feet sideways.
No uplift at all, but that moving ridge could still move a pretty good mass of water, and create a pretty good wave.
I'm not talking about the religiously motivated circumcision common among Semitic peoples, but about the routine medical circumcisions performed on most males in the US at birth. This didn't come about until the late 19th-early 20th century for the reasons I stated. It was to prevent "masturbatory insanity." No, I shit you not.
And the brethren went away edified.
A 7.0 earthquake
A 7.2 earthquake
occured at 7:50PM PST
occured at 6:50PM PST (7:50PM PDT)
source (same as in TFS)
Not that I post on slashdot or anything.
our part of the state Superior California. Caue it was 'above' Northern California, which ends several hundred miles south of the northern border of California.
Some say the end is near.
Some say we'll see armageddon soon.
I certainly hope we will.
I sure could use a vacation from this
Bullshit three ring circus sideshow of
Freaks
Here in this hopeless fucking hole we call LA
The only way to fix it is to flush it all away.
Any fucking time. Any fucking day.
Learn to swim, I'll see you down in Arizona bay.
Fret for your figure and
Fret for your latte and
Fret for your hairpiece and
Fret for your lawsuit and
Fret for your prozac and
Fret for your pilot and
Fret for your contract and
Fret for your car.
It's a
Bullshit three ring circus sideshow of
Freaks
Here in this hopeless fucking hole we call LA
The only way to fix it is to flush it all away.
Any fucking time. Any fucking day.
Learn to swim, I'll see you down in Arizona bay.
Some say a comet will fall from the sky.
Followed by meteor showers and tidal waves.
Followed by faultlines that cannot sit still.
Followed by millions of dumbfounded dipshits.
Some say the end is near.
Some say we'll see armageddon soon.
I certainly hope we will cuz
I sure could use a vacation from this
Silly shit, stupid shit...
One great big festering neon distraction,
I've a suggestion to keep you all occupied.
Learn to swim.
Mom's gonna fix it all soon.
Mom's comin' round to put it back the way it ought to be.
Learn to swim.
Fuck L Ron Hubbard and
Fuck all his clones.
Fuck all those gun-toting
Hip gangster wannabes.
Learn to swim.
Fuck retro anything.
Fuck your tattoos.
Fuck all you junkies and
Fuck your short memory.
Learn to swim.
Fuck smiley glad-hands
With hidden agendas.
Fuck these dysfunctional,
Insecure actresses.
Learn to swim.
Cuz I'm praying for rain
And I'm praying for tidal waves
I wanna see the ground give way.
I wanna watch it all go down.
Mom please flush it all away.
I wanna watch it go right in and down.
I wanna watch it go right in.
Watch you flush it all away.
Time to bring it down again.
Don't just call me pessimist.
Try and read between the lines.
I can't imagine why you wouldn't
Welcome any change, my friend.
I wanna see it all come down.
suck it down.
flush it down.
Also in Southern California. The reports on television had very little helpful information so my wife thought we might be in significant danger. In spite of the fact that we are several miles inland. 100 feet above sea level. With several 500-foot-plus hills between us and the ocean.
That would be some tsunami.
if was indeed broken they probably activated an auxiliary/backup link to route their traffic through
By the nature of TCP/IP there is no reason not to have that "auxiliary backup link" already "activated" and contributing some bandwidth if it's functional.