Kaikoura: ‘Most complex quake ever studied’

Damage on a farm caused by the Kekerengu fault [image credit: GNS Science]

One scientist said of the Papatea fault: “You can call it bonkers; it’s certainly a real puzzle.”

The big earthquake that struck New Zealand last year may have been the most complex ever, say scientists.

November’s Magnitude 7.8 event ruptured a near-200km-long swathe of territory, shifting parts of NZ’s South Island 5m closer to North Island, reports BBC News.

Whole blocks of ground were buckled and lifted upwards, in places by up to 8m. Subsequent investigations have found that at least 12 separate faults broke during the quake, including some that had not previously been mapped.

Writing up its findings in the journal Science, an international team says the Kaikoura event, as it has become known, should prompt a rethink about how earthquakes are expected to behave in high-risk regions such as New Zealand.

New Zealand quake ruptured 6 faults

Region of most recent New Zealand earthquakes [credit: BBC]

It seems the earthquake has reduced stress in some areas, but other parts may well have more than before. One expert said “The whole coast appears to have been uplifted”. LiveScience reporting.

The magnitude-7.8 quake that rattled New Zealand, killing at least two people and stranding thousands of people, completely transformed the underlying faults in the region. Six major faults ruptured as a result of the New Zealand quake, a new map reveals.

The Kaikoura earthquake struck the South Island of New Zealand early in the morning on Nov. 14 local time, triggering landslides, tsunamis and hundreds of aftershocks. And thousands of people were stranded when earthquake detritus dammed a river. During the quake, bystanders captured images of mysterious earthquake lights painting the sky in eerie blue and green.

Recent Italian earthquakes may be showing a ‘domino effect’, seismologist warns

Italian earthquake series continues [image credit: Fox News]

The latest Italian earthquake fortunately seems to have killed no-one but at magnitude 6.6 was a strong one. In Rome ‘The metro was halted for hours and the Colosseum was being checked for damage.’

What next? The Daily Telegraph consults an expert.

The earthquakes that have buffeted central Italy over the last two months could continue in a devastating domino effect with one large quake leading to another along the central Apennine fault system, a leading seismologist has warned.

The latest earthquake on Sunday morning caused no known casualties but was the strongest to hit Italy, one of the world’s most seismically active countries, since 1980.

Mag 6.2 ‘quake central Italy, significant fatalities

Tim writes,

Figure 1, plot from http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/communities/space-weather-enthusiasts

Earthquake at 01:36 UT

Once again the spectre of space weather correlation with earthquakes turns up.

Pacific plate quakes

Tim writes,

There have been two signifcant ring of fire earthquakes, in habitable areas during the past day or so. One in Japan, oddly not in a locality used to quakes, as seems so common, cold and raining, mudslides are doing great damage. The other on the coast of Equador.

Both magnitude > 7 death and severe damage.

See http://earthquake-report.com

I’ve previously pointed at geomagnetic correlation. Doesn’t seem present this time.

New earthquake prediction method cites my PRP paper

It’s gratifying to see that our work is being recognised and used internationally for practical purposes. This paper modifies an existing earthquake prediction technique using our fibonacci-planetary-solar theory to obtain more accurate results. This is a poke in the eye for Martin Rasmussen, the chief of Copernicus (the innovative science unpublishers) with the pro-warmist bias, who shut down the PRP journal because we contradicted the IPCC claim of an accelerating warming of the Earth’s climate in the conclusions paper of our special issue. Real scientists use good ideas regardless of whether they regard other aspects of the papers they come from as being ‘politically incorrect’.

Modified-Fibonacci-Dual-Lucas method for earthquake prediction
A. C. Boucouvalas ; M. Gkasios ; N. T. Tselikas ; G. Drakatos

Proc. SPIE 9535, Third International Conference on Remote Sensing and Geoinformation of the Environment (RSCy2015), 95351A (June 19, 2015); doi:10.1117/12.2192683

Abstract
The FDL (Fibonacci-Dual-Lucas) method makes use of Fibonacci, Dual and Lucas numbers and has shown considerable success in predicting earthquake events locally as well as globally. Predicting the location of the epicenter of an earthquake is one difficult challenge the other being the timing and magnitude. One technique for predicting the onset of earthquakes is the use of cycles, and the discovery of periodicity. Part of this category is the reported FDL method. The basis of the reported FDL method is the creation of FDL future dates based on the onset date of significant earthquakes. The assumption being that each occurred earthquake discontinuity can be thought of as a generating source of FDL time series The connection between past earthquakes and future earthquakes based on FDL numbers has also been reported with sample earthquakes since 1900. Using clustering methods it has been shown that significant earthquakes (<6.5R) can be predicted with very good accuracy window (+-1 day). In this contribution we present an improvement modification to the FDL method, the MFDL method, which performs better than the FDL. We use the FDL numbers to develop possible earthquakes dates but with the important difference that the starting seed date is a trigger planetary aspect prior to the earthquake.

Sun earthquake linkage and August 2015 Chile quake

Two papers are on the way about a model linking solar field activity and large terrestrial eqarthquakes. h/t to Michele

Studies Suggest Sun Triggers Massive Earthquakes
The sun is triggering the deadliest earthquakes on the planet, including the recent M8.3 earthquake in Chile on September 16, 2015 and deadly tsunami that followed, according to two papers to be published October 5th in New Concepts in Global Tectonics. The papers investigate fluctuations in the magnetic field activity of the sun and found a statistically significant relationship between M8+ earthquakes and the extremes and reversals in magnetism of solar polar magnetic fields.

The team first announced the results in August 2014, and recently used the methods proposed in that study to provide evidence that a recent major earthquake fit the patterns observed in the foundational study. In early 2014, Dr. Christopher Holloman’s team of researchers at The Ohio State University Statistical Consulting Service was able to construct a model that exhibited very strong agreement between solar magnetism patterns and the occurrence of large earthquakes. Dr. Holloman warned that formal testing of the model can only be performed by examining its performance over the next few years, but that the agreement was sufficient to suggest that a relationship likely exists between solar polar fields, or magnetic fields associated with the north and south poles of the sun, and large earthquakes. Now we have a subsequent event that appears to comport with the initial study.

— http://spaceweathernews.com/studies-suggest-sun-triggers-massive-earthquakes/

Volcano secrets unlocked with robots and drones

NASA/JPL’s VolcanoBot 1, shown here in a lava tube
[Credits: NASA/JPL-CalTech]

Want to see inside a volcano? Send for VolcanoBot – that’s one option scientists can now use, as E&T Magazine reports.

Exactly 200 years after the biggest recorded volcanic eruption in history, scientists are using robots and UAVs to unlock the secrets of today’s volcanoes.

Two hundred years ago this year, Mount Tambora erupted on Sumbawa, a remote island in the south of Indonesia. The eruption began on 5 April 1815 and reached its climax five days later. A series of smaller steam-driven eruptions continued for the next three years as magma heated ground and surface water.The island lost all its vegetation, most of its animal life and around 10,000 people. Many tens of thousands more perished in the famine and disease epidemics that hit the surrounding islands in the aftermath. No one knows the exact number of deaths, but it is thought to be between 50,000 and 100,000.

Uplifted island: the document of a complete seismic cycle

Sea lions get a lift in Chile
[credit: Daniel Melnick/I.B.Times]

The island Isla Santa María in the south of central Chile is the document of a complete seismic cycle, reports phys.org:

Charles Darwin and his captain Robert Fitzroy witnessed the great earthquake of 1835 in south central Chile. The “Beagle”-Captain’s precise measurements showed an uplift of the island Isla Santa María of 2 to 3 meters after the earthquake. What Darwin and Fitzroy couldn’t know was the fact that 175 years later nearly at the same position such a strong earthquake would recur.

Major earthquake hits Nepal

Earthquake zone [credit: BBC]

BBC reports: Several thousand* people [*last Talkshop update: 28 April] are known to have died in a powerful earthquake that struck Nepal, wrecking many historic buildings, officials have said.

The quake measured 7.9 and struck an area between the capital Kathmandu and the city of Pokhara, the US Geological Survey said.

Tremors were felt across the region, as far afield as Pakistan, Bangladesh and neighbouring India.

A Nepali minister said there had been “massive damage” at the epicentre.

Report (on first day of ‘quake): Nepal earthquake: More than 100 dead, many injured – BBC News.

Casati: new study, major geophysical events and Ap index 1844 onwards

Dr Michele Casati is familiar to many Talkshop readers as an occassional contributor and for his blog.

A new study is being presented at EGU General Assembly 2015, held 12April – 15April, 2015 in Vienna, Austria

Relationship between major geophysical events and the planetary magnetic Ap index, from 1844 to the present

Michele,Casati; Valentino,Straser

Abstract

In this study, for the first time, we compared the annual magnetic Ap index, taken from original sources, from 1844 to the present day [Svalgaard,2014], with:

i) sixteen large volcanic eruptions of index VEI5 + recorded by, Smithsonian Institute (Global Volcanism Program), ii) three sets of the volcanic aerosols data [Ammann et.al,2003][Gao;Chaochao;Alan Robock;Caspar Ammann, 2008][Traufetter et.al,2004] and iii) eight major earthquakes of a magnitude between 8.7<M<9.5, which occurred from 1900 to the present.

Big earthquakes generally occur at low sunspot numbers

Location		Date	Magnitude2
1.	Chile	May 22, 1960	9.5
2.	Prince William Sound, Alaska	March 28, 19643	9.2
3.	Andreanof Islands, Aleutian Islands	March 9, 1957	9.1
4.	Japan	March 11, 2011	9.0
5.	Kamchatka	Nov. 4, 1952	9.0
6.	Off western coast of Sumatra, Indonesia	Dec. 26, 2004	9.0
7.	Off the coast of Ecuador	Jan. 31, 1906	8.8
8.	Offshore Maule, Chile	Feb. 27, 2010	8.8
9.	Rat Islands, Aleutian Islands	Feb. 4, 1965	8.7
10.	Northern Sumatra, Indonesia	March 28, 2005	8.7

Here’s a rough plot of these biggest quakes against sunspot number

Scafetta & Mazzarella: Spectral coherence between climate oscillations and the M ≥ 7 earthquake historical worldwide record

Nicola Scafetta has co-authored a paper with Adriano Mazzarella on the correlation of the spectral frequencies of M7 and greater earthquakes and oceanic oscillations and length of day (LOD). He ascribes those oscillations and the LOD variation to the astronomical forcings identified in earlier papers which have similar spectral frequency peaks.

Abstract

We compare the NOAA Significant Earthquake Historical database versus typical climatic indices and the length of the day (LOD). The Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) record is mainly adopted because most of the analyzed earthquakes occurred at the land boundaries of the Pacific Plate. The NOAA catalog contains information on destructive earthquakes. Using advanced spectral and magnitude squared coherence methodologies, we found that the magnitudeM≥7earthquake annual frequency and the PDO record share common frequencies at about 9-, 20-, and 50- to 60-year periods, which are typically found in climate records and among the solar and lunar harmonics.

Bardarbunga volcano alert in Iceland

A previous Icelandic volcano
[image credit: BBC]

BBC reports:

“Intense seismic activity” began at the volcano on 16 August, and there was a strong earthquake in the region early on Monday, the met office said.

“This is the strongest earthquake measured in the region since 1996.

“Presently there are no signs of eruption, but it cannot be excluded that the current activity will result in an explosive subglacial eruption, leading to an outburst flood and ash emission,” the met office said, adding that the situation was being monitored.

BBC News – Iceland raises Bardarbunga volcano alert to orange.

The risk level to the aviation industry has been raised to orange, the second-highest level, the met office said.

Update 23rd August : Volcano alert level raised to red

*** Update 24th August: Alert level reduced to orange. ***

Update 29 August** Warning A fissure eruption has started north of Dynjujökull.** (Richard Holle)

=============================================================================
LATEST NEWS: http://icelandreview.com/news/bardarbunga

Magnitude 5.1 quake sends shiver down Los Angeles spine

From Buzzfeed

LOS ANGELES — A shallow magnitude-5.1 earthquake struck the Los Angeles area Friday night, causing minor damage and injuries, scattered power outages, and gas leaks.

The earthquake occurred at 9:09 p.m. at a depth of 4.6 miles and was centered near Brea in Orange County — about 20 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles. It was immediately followed by dozens of aftershocks, including a 3.4 and 3.6 magnitude.

Michael Fallon: Southern NIMBY’s will have to accept fracking too.

From the London Evening Standard:

Energy Minister Michael Fallon: The South East must accept fracking
Joe Murphy, Political Editor

The South East must accept shale gas exploration for the sake of Britain’s economic future, Energy Minister Michael Fallon declared today.

He stepped after Surrey-based peer Lord Howell caused outrage by saying “desolate” areas of the North East should be targeted instead.

“It cannot be right to confine it to areas of the industrial North,” he told the Evening Standard.

“Shale exists under towns, villages and countryside. Shale gas is everywhere and could well be in quantity under attractive areas of the country as well as industrial areas.”

The Tory minister was cool about the remarks made by Lord Howell of Guildford, who is George Osborne’s father in law and a former Energy Secretary.

“He has apologised and it’s probably best left there,” he said. Lord Howell has been widely condemned by northern politicians and bishops for suggesting drilling should avoid the South.

7.7 ‘Quake hits Iran/Pakistan Border – Hundreds feared dead

It’s a big one. I hope the people there got clear of buldings in time. UPDATE from Reuters below the break.

4.8 Earthquake in Northern Italy Rocks Ancient City of Lucca

Talkshop Regular Michele Casati noted this event in comments yesterday, saying:

A sad example…. Yesterday very low solar wind (250 Km/s.) Today geomagnetic disturbance
rog, I’ve had great fear …earthquake near Lucca(Tuscany) Italy
Magnitude 5.0 – NORTHERN ITALY
http://cnt.rm.ingv.it/data_id/7226520880/event.html

It’s also worth noting that as well as the low solar windspeed, last night was a full Moon, four days after Lunar Apogee. The 5.8 Earthquake which hit Northern Italy on May 20 last year occurred one day after Lunar Apogee and one day before the New Moon. These are direct alignments of Sun, Earth and Moon when the Moon is near a distance turning point.

The following info is reposted from Alex Roe’s excellent English language blog,  the ‘Italy Chronicles’

Earthquake near Lucca in Tuscany

JANUARY 25, 2013 BY ALEX ROE 

The 4.8 magnitude tremor was felt in Florence and Milan

A few minutes ago via twitter I was told by one of my followers in Pistoia that Florence andPisa had been rattled by an earthquake. A quick search revealed that a magnitude 4.8 or so tremor hit at 15:48 Italian time.

The epicentre was some 13 miles (30 kilometres) north of seaside town Viareggio and not far from Lucca. A list of the places within the earthquake zone can be found on Il Post here: Terremoto tra Toscana ed Emilia

Andrew Orlowski: Frack me! UK shale gas bonanza ‘bigger than North Sea oil’

Here’s an entertaining and informative piece from the Register’s Andrew Orlowski on the new dash for shale gas:

Frack me! UK shale gas bonanza ‘bigger than North Sea oil’
Andrew Orlowski – Dec 14 2012

The government has given the go-ahead for further exploration of the UK’s shale gas reserves. Independent surveys suggest these reserves may yield more energy for the nation than North Sea oil.

The shale gas will be collected using induced hydraulic fracturing, known as “fracking”, which splits rocks thousands of feet below ground using high-pressure liquid.

This is a defeat for environmentalist activists and the powerful renewables lobby – but they have a valuable consolation prize few have noticed. Under the proposed regulatory regime, during the fracking process any tremors that measure 0.5 or higher on the Richter scale may trigger an automatic halt to operations under a “traffic light” scheme outlined by the Lib Dem energy minister Ed Davey.

What does this mean? Well, tremors below magnitude 3.0 are considered to be barely noticeable, and bear in mind that the Richter scale is logarithmic: the energy released by a tremor of magnitude 0.5 is equivalent to the energy released by a large hand grenade.

But since the “epicentre” is thousands of feet below the surface, a 0.5 event escapes the detection of all but the most sensitive seismic monitoring equipment.

Yet one 0.5 event alone will be enough to halt fracking and it can only be restarted by the minister. Which, in practice, means it’s in the hand of the fanatically pro-wind Whitehall bureaucrats at the Department of Energy and Climate Change.

E.U. Supernanny will control Britain’s use of its Sovereign shale gas reserves

From the Guardian:

The chancellor, George Osborne, announced last week that the coalition would offer tax breaks to fracking firms, and intended to set up a new regulator for “unconventional gas”.

The energy secretary, Ed Davey, is shortly expected to lift restrictions on fracking at a site in Lancashire.

But Leinan, a member of the German SPD, spoke of the European parliament‘s growing concern over large-scale fracking, adding that it would pass new regulations to “manage, to discipline” the sector. He said: “There are basically only two countries where the government is behind using it. It is Poland and it is Great Britain, and Poland has not gone very fast. Then in Great Britain they give green light for industrial exploitation but they have to know what they are doing.

I don’t know if they can be so sure and clear about what they are doing.

He said.