Massive 8.8 Earth Quake in Chile

[Astronuc]

The 8.8 earthquake that struck Chile last month moved the city of Concepcion 10 feet to the west and shifted cities across the continent, according to GPS data.

or about 3.3 m.

http://www.e360.yale.edu/content/digest.msp?id=2312

 

[sylas]

or about 3.3 m.

http://www.e360.yale.edu/content/digest.msp?id=2312

10 feet is exactly 3.048 meters. The inch is, by definition, 2.54 centimeters exactly. (Official conversions at NIST)

The original scientific work uses meters, or centimeters. The actual displacement given by the scientists is 3.039 m, at current; though it will continue to be remeasured. If you look at that link you have given, there's a diagram you can click to enlarge. The largest displacement is given there as 303.9 cm.

The American public prefers "feet", so in many releases this is converted to imperial units, and 3.04 m is very close to 10 feet.

Cheers -- sylas

 

[Astronuc]

Thanks for the correction, I was thinking of the number of 3.28084 ft/m, and flipped the conversion.

 

[turbo]

Thanks for the correction, I was thinking of the number of 3.28084 ft/m, and flipped the conversion.

C'mon you two. If someone challenges me to a duel at 10 feet, the precision is not much of an issue. What is at issue is how much of the infrastructure is compromised or more prone to failure due to that shift.

 

[sylas]

C'mon you two.

But heee started it!

Seriously though, you're right, of course.. although I'll continue to correct mathematical errors like this and I am sure others will do the same for me. I hope so!

Primarily, however, I was amazed at the amount of horizontal displacement involved. Many times earthquakes involve a significant vertical displacement as well, but I have not seen that reported in this case. The magnitude of any associated tsunami is, I would guess, also affected by the kinds of displacement shifts involved with earthquake.

Also interesting... Charles Darwin was in Chile in 1835, and experienced a massive earthquake, which also left Concepción in ruins, and resulted in tsunamis. I read his account of that in "Fossils, Finches and Fuegians", by Richard Keynes; a very readable account of the adventures on the Beagle. Darwin was very interested and competent in geology, and though in those days they did not have the capacity to measure horizontal displacements, they were able to estimate vertical shifts by comparing high water marks before and after. Fitzroy, the captain of the Beagle, was also interested in this, and determined that the Island of Santa Maria (a few miles south of Concepción) had been permanently raised, by about 8ft in the south and 10ft in the north. (Feet were acceptable for scientists in those days.^*)

See also http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/02/did-darwin-predict-chilean-quake.html" , by Richard Kerr, in Science Now, February 27, 2010. Lots of interesting technical details.

Cheers -- sylas

^*PS. Added in edit. Sorry turbo-1, I'm just teasing here. We tend to do that to mericans in this neck of the woods. This wasn't worth a whole new post, though, hence this edit.

 

[turbo]

Fitzroy, the captain of the Beagle, was also interested in this, and determined that the Island of Santa Maria (a few miles south of Concepción) had been permanently raised, by about 8ft in the south and 10ft in the north. (Feet were acceptable for scientists in those days.)Cheers -- sylas

Feet are still acceptable for scientists! I prefer moderately fast speeds to be expressed in miles per hour, but if you drop into much smaller speeds, furlongs per fortnight is an acceptable rate of displacement.

 

[ViewsofMars]

Science (AAAS) has an article, Researchers in Chile Hit Hard by Quake, by Jocelyn Kaiser and Antonio Regalado - March 5, 2010. Very sad news. Makes me cry.

Scientists at research universities in several Chilean cities are reeling from last week's earthquake, which overturned microscopes, set fire to laboratories, washed years of research out to sea, and took the life of a young marine biologist. Aftershocks are still rattling the country.

The worst damage reported was to the University of Concepción, near the epicenter of the 8.8 magnitude quake. There a fire ravaged the building housing one of Chile's leading chemistry centers (see photo), including a lab studying advanced polymers. "It's still standing, but it burned completely," said Jaime Baeza, the university's vice-rector for research, reached by cell phone in Concepción. No injuries were reported because the quake took place early Saturday and most of the 100 or so students and faculty were on vacation. But valuable equipment was lost, Baeza says, and "the quake may have set us back 3 or 4 years, even 10 years."

Because other research buildings may have sustained structural damage, faculty are not yet being allowed back into their labs to rescue what might be left of research projects, Baeza said..

A note on the Web site of CONICYT, Chile's main science funding agency, says (translated): "It is a tremendous loss for us, for the country, and for science to see years of investigation destroyed."

continued...

http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/03/researchers-in-chile-hit-hard-by.html

Good news is that there was a recent article from March 5, 2010 by Jocelyn Kaiser and Antonio Regalado from Science. A snippet from it.

The ESO [The European Southern Observatory- regarding 'its next giant facility, the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT)] site selection report declared that all of the five short-listed sites had very good seeing conditions and each had particular strengths. But the panel chose to tap Cerro Armazones in Chile because it had good all-around sky quality and could be managed in an integrated fashion with the nearby VLT on Cerro Paranal. The ESO Council will consider the report at its next meeting in June, taking into account its recommendations and "all other relevant factors," ESO says. Supporters of La Palma like to point out a number of relevant factors, including the seismic risk of sites in Chile. Although all of ESO's facilities in Chile came through the recent earthquake unharmed—they are all far from the epicenter—the extra cost of making them earthquake-proof is a substantial proportion of their cost, Burgos says, adding that the seismic risk on La Palma is much lower.
http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/03/place-mammoth-telescope-on-our-i.html

I really hope Chili is picked!

 

[ViewsofMars]

I really hope Chili is picked!

I am thrilled to announce that Chili has been picked!

E-ELT Site Chosen
World’s Biggest Eye on the Sky to be Located on Armazones, Chile
26 April 2010


On 26 April 2010, the ESO Council selected Cerro Armazones as the baseline site for the planned 42-metre European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT). Cerro Armazones is a mountain at an altitude of 3060 metres in the central part of Chile’s Atacama Desert, some 130 kilometres south of the town of Antofagasta and about 20 kilometres from Cerro Paranal, home of ESO’s Very Large Telescope.

“This is an important milestone that allows us to finalise the baseline design of this very ambitious project, which will vastly advance astronomical knowledge,” says Tim de Zeeuw, ESO’s Director General. “I thank the site selection team for the tremendous work they have done over the past few years.”

ESO’s next step is to build a European extremely large optical/infrared telescope (E-ELT) with a primary mirror 42 metres in diameter. The E-ELT will be “the world’s biggest eye on the sky” — the only such telescope in the world. ESO is drawing up detailed construction plans together with the community. The E-ELT will address many of the most pressing unsolved questions in astronomy, and may, eventually, revolutionise our perception of the Universe, much as Galileo's telescope did 400 years ago. The final go-ahead for construction is expected at the end of 2010, with the start of operations planned for 2018.

The decision on the E-ELT site was taken by the ESO Council, which is the governing body of the Organisation composed of representatives of ESO’s fourteen Member States, and is based on an extensive comparative meteorological investigation, which lasted several years. The majority of the data collected during the site selection campaigns will be made public in the course of the year 2010.

[Please read on . . . ]
http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1018/