Earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis

[Famine]

I admit my ignorance on the subject, but as far as I know it's impossible to scientifically predict an earthquake, so you can't indict someone for that on a court. They were not sentenced for failing to predict it.

Your confusion is warranted - after all, one of the scientists commented afterwards that he was not sure what he was convicted of.

He was in fact convicted of involuntary manslaughter for failing to provide adequate warning of the earthquake.

At present technology, as you say, it isn't possible to predict earthquakes at any level of precision of either time or location to constitute adequate warning.

 

[marco89IT]

Your confusion is warranted - after all, one of the scientists commented afterwards that he was not sure what he was convicted of.

He was in fact convicted of involuntary manslaughter for failing to provide adequate warning of the earthquake.

At present technology, as you say, it isn't possible to predict earthquakes at any level of precision of either time or location to constitute adequate warning.

It seems I missed your "read between the lines" thought on your previous post then, my fault. That first conviction was unclear to almost everyone, I guess public opinion played a big part on that decision. Especially because public opinion was highly influenced by a scientist in L'Aquila, who claimed to have found a way to predict big quakes by measuring the amount of radon in the air. He predicted a big one in a city 50 kms away from L'Aquila one week before the actual earthquake, but that day nothing happened. Anyway, it was enough to scare the population. After the tragic quake in L'Aquila he said he noticed his measurements reaching scary levels that night, took his family outside (he didn't tell anyone else because he had been sued for the previous failure) and waited in his house, looking at his instruments, until it happened. A bit too Hollywood-ish. And he did it again for the recent one, posting on Facebook anomalies on the graphs of his Radon measurement stations, with the only little detail being that he did it after the event.

 

[Dennisch]

There's a lot of drone footage of the devastation in Italy. Entire villages just turned into piles of rubble. Incredible.

 

[Dotini]

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that portion of Italy very scenic, wealthy and retains much in the way of medieval age architecture?

Edit:


A SERIES of overdue high magnitude earthquakes is expected to strike at any moment along some of Earth’s major fault lines, an expert says.

UTS Geotechnical and Earthquake Engineering senior lecturer Dr Behzad Fatahi said “no one in the world is safe” from the looming natural disasters of potentially apocalyptic proportions.

“There are a lot of magnitude 6-plus earthquakes overdue in the Middle East, India, China, Japan and the US,” Dr Fatahi told news.com.au.
http://www.news.com.au/technology/e...s/news-story/0453eac947c8a9485be293364f56ac50

 

[Dennisch]

UTS Geotechnical and Earthquake Engineering senior lecturer Dr Behzad Fatahi said “no one in the world is safe” from the looming natural disasters of potentially apocalyptic proportions.

“There are a lot of magnitude 6-plus earthquakes overdue in the Middle East, India, China, Japan and the US,” Dr Fatahi told news.com.au.

Stuff like this is always so pointless and easy.

The USA is also on the verge of destruction due to the Yellowstone volcano being a 100000 years late.

 

[marco89IT]

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that portion of Italy very scenic, wealthy and retains much in the way of medieval age architecture?

Wealthy: On average, the population of those little towns is 5 or 6 times smaller than it was a century ago, that alone should explain that you haven't got lots of opportunities there.
Scenic and medieval age architecture: yes. In a few words, those little towns are the middle of the mountains and they attract tourists because of those reasons. It's quite common that people from biggest cities own an "holiday house" in those kind of towns, so they move there during the summer to have a break from the rush of their city. I guess that increased the death toll. The same can be said about the medieval architecture, this picture explains quite a lot about the age difference between the houses:

Even though it has to be said that in this town a school renovated in 2012 collapsed almost completely, and that will require some explaining.

 

[CodeRedR51]

So there was a large swarm of earthquakes near the Salton Sea in California a few days ago. And because of that, parts of southern California are currently under an earthquake advisory with an increased chance of a quake higher than 4.3 occurring shortly.

 

[JKgo]

....Good lord, I've family in San Diego. Better go call them, see if they are fine.

 

[Daniel]

There's been a few dozen noticeable earthquakes in the past two hours throughout the North and South Islands of New Zealand.

Parts of the east coasts have received tsunami warnings, and there are reports of tsunami waves hitting the NE coast of the South Island around Blenheim, Kaikoura (SI) and Wellington (NI).

 

[Blitz24]

There's been a few dozen noticeable earthquakes in the past two hours throughout the North and South Islands of New Zealand.

Parts of the east coasts have received tsunami warnings, and there are reports of tsunami waves hitting the NE coast of the South Island around Blenheim, Kaikoura (SI) and Wellington (NI).

If any one of those were the main, would it be the one right on the north tip of the South Island?

 

[Daniel]

The initial one was one of the ones in the bottom left, closer to Christchurch.

 

[Daniel]

Double post

This is the last 48 hours of seismic activity in New Zealand. Each dot is an earthquake scoring at least a 2 on the magnitude scale.

 

[Dotini]

The sky flashing blue during the New Zealand earthquake

The sky over Wellington was lit up in green and blue (Picture: Instagram)

Incredible footage filmed during the New Zealand earthquake shows the night sky lighting up with bright colours.



In a paper published in science journal Seismological Research Letters, researchers stated that lights have been spotted weeks before an earthquake.

This could be due to stress building in the fault lines prior to the disaster.



Read more: http://metro.co.uk/2016/11/14/myste...land-earthquake-struck-6256459/#ixzz4PzUWDd9b


Edit:
This video is not from a science source, but even so does have some interesting photos and background on earthquake lights in the first 5 minutes.

 

[Necroternal]

I saw those lights! Wondered what it was - turned out to be a substation arcing!

 

[CodeRedR51]

I saw those lights! Wondered what it was - turned out to be a substation arcing!

Figured that's what it was.

 

[Dotini]

ABC, updated an hour ago, are still reporting earthquake lights.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-14/new-zealand-earthquake-sky-flashes-green-and-blue/8022476

Edit: A science oriented article on the reported New Zealand earthquake lights:
http://www.livescience.com/56869-what-are-earthquake-lights.html

EDIT 2:
http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/cl...s-earthquake-lights-captured-over-new-zealand
"While many people initially assumed the lights were the result of power line transformers exploding from the quake, the video shows the event happening far off the coast. Lightning has also been ruled out because there were no storms in the area at the time. What residents witnessed were "earthquake lights," a still-unexplained natural phenomena that has been reported over the centuries. The lights appear while the ground is shaking and before it begins.

 

[Nato_777]

Just got some internet restored after Monday morning's (12:02am) 7.8 earthquake hit not far south of where I live. It caused some pretty massive damage, fortunately most of the worst affected areas are not very populated and there was only one fatality directly caused and a heart attack. Considering the huge damage caused to the land with massive slips and huge cracks in the ground we got off pretty lightly really. That was one wild ride though and we are still getting constant aftershocks, had a couple just while typing this. In Kaikoura where I live the seashore has risen up to 4 meters in some spots and the peninsula has been raised by a similar amount changing the coastline quite dramatically!

 

[Daniel]

Completely forgot that you lived in Kaikoura, @Nato_777! Glad you're safe.

 

[Nato_777]

Completely forgot that you lived in Kaikoura, @Nato_777! Glad you're safe.

Thanks, we're all good. Place is a bit of a mess but it makes life interesting.

 

[CodeRedR51]

In Kaikoura where I live the seashore has risen up to 4 meters in some spots and the peninsula has been raised by a similar amount changing the coastline quite dramatically!

Pretty crazy images. (more here)

 

[Nato_777]

It's sad to see all those paua (abalone) high and dry and dying. I used to dive for those along there. So many crayfish were stranded too, even fish got stuck out of water as the ground lifted so fast! I'm amazed every house wasn't flattened in Kaikoura. There was only 1 collapse and a dozen or so left unliveable, we were very fortunate really.

 

[Dennisch]

6.9 in the Fukushima area just now. Tsunami warning issued.

 

[CodeRedR51]

6.5 near California this morning, then a 7.8 near the Solomon Islands shortly after.

I'm sure one caused the other.

 

[TenEightyOne]

It's hard to find positives from the NZ earthquakes but at least one council has been able to save on flood defences. BBC.

 

[Dennisch]

There was a 6.7 10km of the coast of the Southwest coast of Turkey, and several nearby Greek Islands, both popular tourist areas.

 

[CodeRedR51]

7.5 just happened in Papua New Guinea. Obviously not far from the recent volcano eruption in Indonesia.

https://weather.com/news/news/2018-02-25-papua-new-guinea-earthquake

 

[Dotini]

7.5 just happened in Papua New Guinea. Obviously not far from the recent volcano eruption in Indonesia.

https://weather.com/news/news/2018-02-25-papua-new-guinea-earthquake

Recently I've seen articles reporting we can expect to see a real rise in earthquake activity this year. This is said to be because the rotation of the Earth is decelerating, slowing almost imperceptibly, yet enough to initiate seismic activity. Volcanoes are not yet mentioned. But I suppose we can anticipate more of both.

 

[Dotini]

Anomalous lights preceding or during a strong earthquake are reported and caught on camera. The physics of this are not settled, but are discussed in science literature. There are skeptics who deny the phenomena entirely.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake_light

Vid of examples (wouldn't hurt to turn off sound.)

 

[kikie]

There was a massive 3.1 earthquake in Limburg.

 

[TenEightyOne]

3.9 under Cleethorpes (south side of the Humber, England) at about 22:15 this evening. Spoiled a full 2 mins of the Endeavour repeat for me and Mrs. Ten on the other side of the water. 'Ll be reet.

Spoiler