Deadly Earthquake Rocks China: What Happened?

[Astronuc]

That area in Illinois had a small swarm of earthquakes, and there was a small one to the southwest down near the intersection of the borders of MO, TN, and KY.

      UTC-TIME   LAT      LON    DEPTH                   
Mag     h:m:s    deg      deg     km      LOCATION
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
2008/04/19
2.7   03:05:52  38.474  -87.795   2.9    7 km ( 4 mi) NNW of Mount Carmel, IL 

2008/04/18
[b]4.6   15:14:16  38.478  -87.869  10.0   11 km ( 7 mi) NNE of Bellmont, IL[/b] 
2.6   11:55:57  38.465  -87.854  10.0    9 km ( 6 mi) NW of Mount Carmel, IL 
2.2   10:46:24  38.440  -87.880  17.8    7 km ( 4 mi) NNE of Bellmont, IL 
3.4   10:36:33  38.460  -87.860  17.8    9 km ( 6 mi) NNE of Bellmont, IL 
2.5   10:15:31  38.464  -87.846  10.0    9 km ( 5 mi) NW of Mount Carmel, IL 
2.5   10:03:59  38.453  -87.805  10.0    5 km ( 3 mi) NW of Mount Carmel, IL 
2.6   09:59:31  38.469  -87.795  10.0    6 km ( 4 mi) NNW of Mount Carmel, IL 
[b]5.2   09:37:00  38.450  -87.890  11.6    7 km ( 5 mi) NNE of Bellmont, IL[/b]

In addition to the Mag 8 or 9 expected in the NW along the Pacific Subduction zone, it's also possible to have one around southern Missouri.


Summary of the 4.6 mag - http://earthquakes.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsus/Quakes/us2008qzbw.php#details

 

[rewebster]

I don't know if anyone noticed--but the 'images' of the locations of the earthquacks (duck!) are not static in the earlier posts--


-they are 'updated' directly from the USG in real time on each refresh of the thread after one happens

 

[rewebster]

http://earthquakes.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsus/Maps/AK2/51.53.-180.-176.gif

194 just in the last week in this 'end' part of the Aleutian Chain

 

[Astronuc]

194 just in the last week in this 'end' part of the Aleutian Chain

Those images change about every 15 minutes.

The Aleutian chain is one of the most seismically active regions in the world. It's on the northern boundary of the Pacific Ring of Fire.

Another active area is boundary between Asia and Pacific plates, and between those two and the Australian plate. The area along the Sunda trench, basically the western and southern sides of Indonesia are also very seismically active, and out past Papua/New Guinea, Fiji, Tonga, and then south to New Zealand.


As for the midwest - it's worth keeping an eye on it.

Scientists say Midwest quakes poorly understood
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080419/ap_on_re_us/midwest_earthquake

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Scientists say they know far too little about Midwestern seismic zones like the one that rumbled to life under southern Illinois Friday morning, but some of what they do know is unnerving.

The fault zones beneath the Mississippi River Valley have produced some of the largest modern U.S. quakes east of the Rockies, a region covered with old buildings not built to withstand seismic activity.

And, when quakes happen, they're felt far and wide, their vibrations propagated over hundreds of miles of bedrock.

Friday's quake shook things up from Nebraska to Atlanta, rattling nerves but doing little damage and seriously hurting no one. It was a magnitude 5.2 temblor centered just outside West Salem in southeastern Illinois, a largely rural region of small towns that sit over the Wabash fault zone. The area has produced moderately strong quakes as recently as 2002.

The Mississippi River was realigned because of earthquakes, and Lake Reelfoot in Tennessee was also formed by those earthquakes.

The strongest quake produced in recent history by the Wabash was a magnitude 5.3 in southern Illinois in 1968, but researchers have found evidence that 4,000 to 6,000 years ago, much stronger quakes shook the region, Kim said, as strong as magnitude 7.0 or more.

 

[rewebster]

Another aftershock woke me last night----check the map in post #10

 

[CometDude]

I live in Japan we one you can feel almost everyday

 

[rewebster]

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsus/Maps/US10/32.42.-95.-85.gif

we had another one today---the worst thing (maybe) is that there are some in the New Madrid fault area

 

[Astronuc]

Earthquake In Illinois Could Portend An Emerging Threat
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080424171350.htm

ScienceDaily (Apr. 25, 2008) — To the surprise of many, the earthquake on April 18, 2008, about 120 miles east of St. Louis, originated in the Wabash Valley Fault and not the better-known and more-dreaded New Madrid Fault in Missouri's bootheel.

. . . the Wabash Fault is the new kid on the block.

The earthquake registered 5.2 on the Richter scale and hit at 4:40 a.m. with a strong aftershock occurring at approximately 10:15 a.m. that morning, followed by lesser ones in subsequent days. The initial earthquake was felt in parts of 16 states.

. . . .

Wiens said that seismologist Robert Hermann of Saint Louis University, Gary Pavils of Indiana University, and several geologists including Steven Obermeir of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), have made studies of the Wabash Valley Fault. Pavils also has run a dense local array of stations and recorded many very small earthquakes at the Wabash Valley Fault. Hermann has studied the 1968 magnitude 5.5 earthquake, the largest ever recorded there. Obermeir and others have found disturbed sediments from previous earthquakes along the fault with estimated magnitudes of about 7 on the Richter scale over the past several thousand years.

According to Wysession, there are 200,000 earthquakes recorded every year, with a magnitude 6 earthquake happening every three days somewhere in the world.

. . . .

It certainly would be disruptive if the Mississippi River got realigned again.

 

[rewebster]

8,500 dead as earthquake hits China

"The 7.8-magnitude earthquake was among the worst to strike China in decades, devastating a hilly region of small cities and towns in Sichuan and nearby provinces. The official Xinhua News Agency said 8,533 people died in Sichuan and dozens of other deaths were reported elsewhere."


http://ukpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5iSm5aKT-F-fW_k9NLyR4F1X2v5Lg


http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Maps/10/105_30.gif

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Maps/10/105_30.php