Recently in Geology Category

Another major earthquake in Southeast Asia has just occurred. According to the USGS:

A great earthquake occurred at 16:09:37 (UTC) on Monday, March 28, 2005. The magnitude 8.2 8.7 event has been located in NORTHERN SUMATRA, INDONESIA. (This event has been reviewed by a seismologist.)

An earthquake of this magnitude can generate tsunamis. Of interest is the latest Tsunami Bulletin from NOAA which says that there is no threat to countries bordering the Pacific Ocean (since the quake was centered on the western side of Indonesia) but does give interesting information regarding the Indian Ocean areas:

WARNING... THIS EARTHQUAKE HAS THE POTENTIAL TO GENERATE A WIDELY DESTRUCTIVE TSUNAMI IN THE OCEAN OR SEAS NEAR THE EARTHQUAKE. AUTHORITIES IN THOSE REGIONS SHOULD BE AWARE OF THIS POSSIBILITY AND TAKE IMMEDIATE ACTION. THIS ACTION SHOULD INCLUDE EVACUATION OF COASTS WITHIN A THOUSAND KILOMETERS OF THE EPICENTER AND CLOSE MONITORING TO DETERMINE THE NEED FOR EVACUATION FURTHER AWAY. THIS CENTER DOES NOT HAVE SEA LEVEL GAUGES OUTSIDE THE PACIFIC SO WILL NOT BE ABLE TO DETECT OR MEASURE A TSUNAMI IF ONE WAS GENERATED. AUTHORITIES CAN ASSUME THE DANGER HAS PASSED IF NO TSUNAMI WAVES ARE OBSERVED IN THE REGION NEAR THE EPICENTER WITHIN THREE HOURS OF THE EARTHQUAKE.

The term this center refers to NOAA. You know that you would think after the Christmas disaster that some of those local governments would be hurrying to put the equipment in to operation. I guess not... Within the past few minutes, an aftershock that is approximated to be around magnitude 8.5 has been registered. The best way to keep watch is to go to the USGS Earthquake Hazards Program. Update: Below is the trace from a seismograph at Columbia University in Palisades, NY:

And not the musical variety, either. MSNBC is reporting a minor earthquake in Arkansas.

The temblor, preliminarily put at magnitude 4.1, shook eastern Arkansas and western Tennessee early in the morning. It was centered 47 miles (75 kilometers) north-northwest of Memphis.

Ok, you say So what, who cares? If you are a geologist or an American historian, you already know why this event is causing a stir. This seismic area is known as New Madrid.

The infamous series of three New Madrid quakes in 1811-1812 occurred a few weeks apart, from Dec. 16 to Feb. 7. They measured 8.1, 8.0 and 7.8 and represent three of the four strongest earthquakes ever recorded in the lower 48.

A harbinger of things to come? You can learn more about New Madrid and seismic activity in this area of the US at the Arkansas Center for Earthquake Education and Technology Transfer web site at the University of Arkansas-Little Rock.

The first pictures are just coming in from Cassini-Huygens mission to Titan and they are spectacular and very curious from a geological point of view. Rocks! The interesting part is it looks to me with even my limited hydrogeology training that we are seeing a dry stream bed of some kind. The rocks appear sorted which you commonly see in a creek. I did read an early science release where they are alluding to streams of methane. This is going to be major news, as well as a wealth of work for geologists world-wide.

MSNBC is now reporting a huge avalanche at a Park City, Utah ski resort.

An avalanche crashed down a 300-yard-wide swath of mountain near a ski slope at the popular Canyons resort on Friday, trapping as many as 15 skiers under snow, according to local reports. Rescue teams and dogs were searching for the skiers, who were in an area off-limits to them.

When will it end? The weather is going absolutely crazy at the start of 2005. Yesterday, it was shorts weather here at nearly 70 degrees while today, the temperature is hovering just above freezing.

In comparison to the great earthquake in December, the earthquake today in Sumatra was much smaller at only a magnitude of 6.2. Again, no tsunami affects to the Pacific Ocean Islands since it occurred in the Indian Ocean. It appears from all preliminary evaluation by the USGS that there was no tsunami generated from this event.

The impact of the great earthquake this past week is thought to of made a definite change to the earth's rotation and tilt. An article on CNN reports what the chairman of JPL's International Earth Rotation Service's Special Bureau for the Oceans, theorizes are the effects of the earthquake's force.

Richard Gross, a geophysicist with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, theorized that a shift of mass toward the Earth's center during the quake Sunday caused the planet to spin 3 microseconds, or millionths of a second, faster and to tilt about an inch on its axis.

He goes on to say that there are probably no long-term effects from this slight variation. This further shows how dynamic a planet that we live on. (via Coast-to-Coast AM)

The US scientific community is talking today about the widespread death and destruction caused by the tsunamis triggered by the Sunday's great earthquake (see below) off Sumatra. They are talking about how the senseless loss of life could have been prevented. The problem lies not in the fact that there is no warning system. On the contrary, an international system of sensors and warning systems was established after the 1964 Alaska earthquake. The system, which is administered by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, includes most of the major nations that are affected by the Ring of Fire which is the area of the Pacific Ocean and surrounding bodies of water where many earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur. Without going into minute detail, the ocean floor in this are has many large trenches and underwater volcanoes. As a result of plate movement and eruptions, earthquakes occur frequently and, with earthquakes, come tsunamis. (large map of the Ring of Fire, courtesy of the USGS) The problem is that not all nations that could be potentially affected by tsunamis are members of the warning system. Which countries are missing? Most notably, the countries of India and Sri Lanka are not members. The director of NOAA's Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, Charles McCreary, told the Associated Press "that's because tsunamis are much less frequent in the Indian Ocean." The AP article also noted that "although Thailand belongs to the international tsunami warning network, its west coast does not have the system's wave sensors mounted on ocean buoys." Thailand's west coast resort of Phuket sustained loss of life and property as well from tsunamis. What will happen because of this? Let us hope that the nations affected will consider installing the necessary scientific equipment - ocean buoys and tide sensors - and become a part of the international network to share information and save lives the next time a tsunami occurs. Editor's Note - Seismic events are of great interest to me as an earth scientist. It is truly sad that these countries did not take the simple scientific steps necessary to help save all of the lives lost. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Unfortunately, you cannot cure a dead person. Also, I was not saying that it was a great earthquake as in I thought it was wonderful that there was an earthquake but rather that it was a great earthquake, a geologic term for an earthquake having a magnitude of 8 or greater on the open-ended Richter scale. Sorry for any misunderstanding.

Words like that are being used to describe the magnitude 8.9 earthquake off the West Coast of Northern Sumatra that occurred just before 8 PM (EST) last evening. The effects of the quake and the accompanying tsunamis has devastated thousands of people across the Asian sub-continent. The USGS Earthquake Center reports:

At least 2,200 people killed in Sri Lanka, 1,600 in India, 700 in Indonesia, 220 in Thailand, 29 in Malaysia and 2 in Bangladesh by tsunamis. Tsunamis also occurred on the coasts of Maldives, Cocos Island and Somalia. At least 200 people killed, buildings destroyed or damaged in the Banda Aceh area, Sumatra. Felt widely in Sumatra. Also felt in Bangladesh, India, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore and Thailand. This is the fifth largest earthquake in the world since 1900 and is the largest since the 1964 Prince William Sound, Alaska earthquake.

News is coming in about the tsunamis, death tolls, and the aftermath of the earthquake. This also makes one think about the possible severity of Near Earth Object 2004 MN4. This quake was like 10,000 A-Bombs; 2004 MN4 is estimated at 10 times greater! Scary thought - let me revise my possible observing position for that one: make it the moon!