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ProfessorTomoe

Earthquake 2016-09-03

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Reports are coming in from all over North Texas of an earthquake that hit around 7:04 a.m CDT, which I felt. The press is thinking that the source was a 5.6 quake north of Stillwater, OK and NW of Pawnee, OK.

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2 hours ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

Reports are coming in from all over North Texas of an earthquake that hit around 7:04 a.m CDT, which I felt. The press is thinking that the source was a 5.6 quake north of Stillwater, OK and NW of Pawnee, OK.

I felt the Stillwater quake.  Lasted almost a minute.

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Having lived in earthquake country all of my life (California, then Japan, then California again), My instinct is that unless there's a danger of something falling down (e.g. those fragile vases on your shelf), then it's hardly even worth a second thought.

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3 hours ago, ijuin said:

Having lived in earthquake country all of my life (California, then Japan, then California again), My instinct is that unless there's a danger of something falling down (e.g. those fragile vases on your shelf), then it's hardly even worth a second thought.

The interesting thing about this though, is earthquakes in California tend to stay isolated to California due to the geology there, whereas quakes that happen in the eastern US can affect larger areas because the rock structure allows vibrations to travel farther. For example, there was a 6.0 quake in California back in 2004 that was mainly felt by Californians, maybe some on the edge of Oregon and Nevada as well. In 2011 though there was a 5.8 quake in Virginia that was felt as far north as Ottawa, Canada, and as far south as Florida, I'm in southwestern ontario and remember hearing things rattle on shelves and thinking at first that a large truck drove by the appartment. A relatively strong quake in California would cause a decent amount of destruction in a small area though considering all that's in California it would still be very costly, however a strong quake on the east could potentially do a lot more widespread damage.

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6 hours ago, Scotty said:

The interesting thing about this though, is earthquakes in California tend to stay isolated to California due to the geology there, whereas quakes that happen in the eastern US can affect larger areas because the rock structure allows vibrations to travel farther. For example, there was a 6.0 quake in California back in 2004 that was mainly felt by Californians, maybe some on the edge of Oregon and Nevada as well. In 2011 though there was a 5.8 quake in Virginia that was felt as far north as Ottawa, Canada, and as far south as Florida, I'm in southwestern ontario and remember hearing things rattle on shelves and thinking at first that a large truck drove by the apartment. A relatively strong quake in California would cause a decent amount of destruction in a small area though considering all that's in California it would still be very costly, however a strong quake on the east could potentially do a lot more widespread damage.

All right, but I was speaking of intensity within the zone of effect, rather than extent of the zone of effect. Rattling the windows and shelves is barely worth noticing. It's when things start falling OFF the shelves that there is danger (in which case you want to duck and cover so that none of it hits you).

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5 hours ago, ijuin said:

It's when things start falling OFF the shelves that there is danger (in which case you want to duck and cover so that none of it hits you).

You strictly speaking don't need an earthquake for that. All you need is a cat. Or two, like my own dearly departed fur-covered troublemakers.

Hm. I wonder if felines intensify the scale logarithmically, too? So one cat can create a force 1 catastrophe, two of them force 10, three of them force 100...

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13 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

I think a repeat of the New Madrid event is high on every American disaster planner's "Worst Case Scenario" list.

Yellowstone blowing up is about the only thing higher.  Well maybe an dinosaurs killing level astroide strike.

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19 hours ago, Scotty said:

The interesting thing about this though, is earthquakes in California tend to stay isolated to California due to the geology there, whereas quakes that happen in the eastern US can affect larger areas because the rock structure allows vibrations to travel farther.  <snip>

 

16 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Could have been worse. Check out the New Madrid Earthquakes.

The New Madrid fault is at the southern tip of Illinois.  There were reports of church bells ringing in Boston during the last big New Madrid quake.

Interestingly enough, I attended a talk on potential disasters and disaster planning in which they explained that, due to the placement of bedrock and slate and other stuff I don't recall the details of, the energy from a New Madrid quake would likely travel a lot further and stronger to the east than to the north.  Pennsylvania would likely be harder hit than Chicago.

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2 hours ago, mlooney said:

Yellowstone blowing up is about the only thing higher.  Well maybe an dinosaurs killing level astroide strike.

Given all the population clustered on the coasts, there are mega tsunami scenarios, either from collapsing underwater volcanos or ocean meteor strikes, that could be probably kill more people than New Madrid or a record setting California quake without being in extinction risk category. 

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1 hour ago, malloyd said:

Given all the population clustered on the coasts, there are mega tsunami scenarios, either from collapsing underwater volcanos or ocean meteor strikes, that could be probably kill more people than New Madrid or a record setting California quake without being in extinction risk category. 

Funny you should mention that.  One of the series I'm reading right now, "The Laundry" has that as one of the major weapons of "The Deep Ones".  Yes, Lovecraft's Deep Ones.

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6 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

They will never be able to identify every asteroid or comet that could cross the Earth's orbit and produce a Tunguska, or larger, event.

Yes. Bloody things are sneaky. Next one coming might put on a mask and then we wouldn't be able even to recognise it and pull it out of a line-up.

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19 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

They will never be able to identify every asteroid or comet that could cross the Earth's orbit and produce a Tunguska, or larger, event.

'Never' is a strong word.

I did only say it looks pretty clear.

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5 hours ago, Drachefly said:

'Never' is a strong word.

You are correct.

Within the lifespan of human and human-like species on the Earth, there may come a time when cataloging of large bodies, that is objects capable of producing a Tunguska (or larger) event, between the Sun and the nearest neighboring stars is so complete that no object in the area could change orbit, or no new object could enter the area, without Earth authorities being aware of said object with at least 100 Earth years to spare.

It is also possible that few troupes of Boy Scouts on camp-outs around the world, armed with field binoculars, could catalogue every object in the solar system that could hit the Earth within a century.

And there is also the scenario where an official body CLAIMS to have such a catalog system, but the massive costs of the project demand taxes at an unheard of level.

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I wouldn't know about seeing new objects literally 100 years away--by the time an incoming object crosses the orbit of Neptune, it's within thirty-six years of reaching Earth's distance, even if it has ZERO speed beyond that which it gains from falling sunward from that distance. In short, 90% of the Kuiper Belt objects are less than a century away from us, so we'd have to map EVERY hundred-meter object within that radius. . . and we are just BARELY able to see the Pluto-sized ones that far out with our current best telescopes.

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This is getting a bit afield from earthquakes, but I would point out that the Hubble's mirror is a measly 2.4 meters and its FoV is tteeeeeeny tiny.

Once we get a space-based synoptic telescope of the kind of size you'd expect down on Earth, those things are going to be far, far more visible. With launch costs going down the way they are, within a few decades that should not provide a noticeable strain on our budget.

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12 hours ago, Drachefly said:

This is getting a bit afield from earthquakes, but I would point out that the Hubble's mirror is a measly 2.4 meters and its FoV is tteeeeeeny tiny.

Once we get a space-based synoptic telescope of the kind of size you'd expect down on Earth, those things are going to be far, far more visible. With launch costs going down the way they are, within a few decades that should not provide a noticeable strain on our budget.

When they finally get the James Webb Telescope done and in position, we'll have 6.5m mirror looking out into space.

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