Earth Quake in Japan: OFF EAST COAST OF HONSHU

[PiNG]

http://www.iris.edu/seismon/zoom/eve...07&lat=38.1692

http://www.iris.edu/seismon/zoom/?vi...lon=145&lat=36

http://www.iris.edu/seismon/

Hope everythings okay there

[Macht]

Re: Earth Quake in Japan: OFF EAST COAST OF HONSHU

Intresting that the earthquakes for the Past 5 years were all under 4 magnitude, but the past 2 weeks, yesterday, and today are like 4-8 magnitude. Just reading that wrong or is it not accuratly showing the equakes magnitude from the past 5 years? Seems the earthquakes are comming back in full force then if that's the case.

[tdh]

Re: Earth Quake in Japan: OFF EAST COAST OF HONSHU

Yeah, Mother Nature seems to be pissed. She's been "making space" this last year. Tsunami, Hurricanes, and Earth Quakes. She's taking out people EVERYWHERE!

[PiNG]

Re: Earth Quake in Japan: OFF EAST COAST OF HONSHU

yup, it's pretty crazy lately, that area's been shaking a bit though, if u look at the history, i'm pretty sure it'd be a BIG news if anything major happened. hopefully there won't be a tsunami.

I know So.cal has been TOO quite for a long time... probably will go big when it goes off :/

[Kagerou]

Re: Earth Quake in Japan: OFF EAST COAST OF HONSHU

I was there during the Kobe earthquake so I know how frickin' horrific it is to be in a magnitude 7-8 earthquake. Hope everyone is ok down there...

[bside]

Re: Earth Quake in Japan: OFF EAST COAST OF HONSHU

we're ok here in Japan. it caused tsunami in north-eastern part of Japan, but the highest one observed was of 50 cm. no big deal. not to mention the land didn't shake much.


as u know, due to the unique geographical location of Japan, sitting on 4 tectonic plates, we have many earthquakes throughout the year. and largely due to that fact, Japan has its own scale of earthquakes to measure the level of land quake at a given location. it has 8 ranks of intensity, between 0 and 7, w/ 7 being the greatest, and ever since the rank 7 was created after 1948's Fukui earthquake, there r only 2 earthquakes that ever recorded this rank to date; one is the Kobe earthquake back in 1995, and another is the Mid Niigata Prefecture earthquake of last year.

EDIT: it now has 10 ranks. i forgot that they now divide rank 5 and 6 in to 2 different scales; 5 upper and lower, and 6 upper and lower.


this morning's earthquake recorded the highest of rank 3 in northern part of Japan, whose definition is as follows;

indoor: most ppl feel the quake, and as the quake continues longer, they might start feeling uneasiness and fear. stacked ceramic dishes make sounds.

outdoor: electric wires and cables shake even without a wind.

buildings: not affected.

infrastructure: not affected.

geography: not affected.


as u can see, it's not a big deal at all.


btw, the magnitude is purely a scale of energy, and by itself it won't indicate how much land quakes. according to the link above, the magnitude of this morning's earthquake was 7.2, and that's the same as the Kobe earthquake's initial report (later corrected to 7.3). obvisouly, it didn't cause the land to shake as much as Kobe's.

[Caspian]

Re: Earth Quake in Japan: OFF EAST COAST OF HONSHU

From my very limited knowledge of geology, what I understand is since you have several small earthquakes a year, it is largely the reason why you hardly ever have any big earthquakes. What makes cali so bad is that they have these dry spells like this one that last years and years, building up a lot of stress in the plates. When it finally does move ,it moves big and causes much more damage than if it slowly just let off stress routinely.
Did you mean to say 50cm? Isnt that like less than two feet? When I was in Hawaii in march, we were on North Shore where they were routinely getting 30 and 40 foot waves, and those they acted were pretty common, atleast in the winter months.

[bside]

Re: Earth Quake in Japan: OFF EAST COAST OF HONSHU

From my very limited knowledge of geology, what I understand is since you have several small earthquakes a year, it is largely the reason why you hardly ever have any big earthquakes. What makes cali so bad is that they have these dry spells like this one that last years and years, building up a lot of stress in the plates. When it finally does move ,it moves big and causes much more damage than if it slowly just let off stress routinely.

Did you mean to say 50cm? Isnt that like less than two feet? When I was in Hawaii in march, we were on North Shore where they were routinely getting 30 and 40 foot waves, and those they acted were pretty common, atleast in the winter months.

i don't know much about them myself either, but if that holds true then we're gonna need some other explanations for huge earthquakes that might not make any news headlines outside of the couuntry. while rank 7 means insanely huge, rank 5 and 6 r still huge enough to kill ppl. but earthquakes of those ranks hardly get known outside of Japan, because they don't make that many of dead victims.

EDIT: i did some quick search, and came up w/ this: in year 2003 alone, there were 5 of "6 lower" earthquakes, and 1 of "6 upper" earthquake recorded in Japan.

i found the attached picture at the Japan Meteorological Agency's website, which would show how bad rank 5 and 6 could be.


and yes, i meant to say 50cm, and it's less than 2ft. still it's recorded as tsunami due to the nature of its origin.

[Caspian]

Re: Earth Quake in Japan: OFF EAST COAST OF HONSHU

and yes, i meant to say 50cm, and it's less than 2ft. still it's recorded as tsunami due to the nature of its origin.

Interesting, didnt know that.

EDIT: Also, I seem to remember studying another earthquake measurement scale something like that one. I cant recall the name, but I know it wasnt the Richter scale. Whereas richter measures the inensity of the earthquake, this other scale measured the destruction caused. So, an 8.0 on the richter could be like a 1 or 2 if it occured out in the middle of nowhere. And vice versa, if a low lvl say a 2 or 3 occured in the middle of San Francisco, it could theoretically be a much higher number on this other scale.
The 7 showed on that picture seemed pretty extreme. It would seem if a 7 ever hits Japan, then all of the country will fall into the ocean. >< Hope that never happens.

[bside]

Re: Earth Quake in Japan: OFF EAST COAST OF HONSHU

Interesting, didnt know that.

for some reason, the dictionary definition of tsunami is somewhat incorrect. in the American Heritage dictionary, 4th ed., it's defined as follows;

A very large ocean wave caused by an underwater earthquake or volcanic eruption.

as u can see, it's limited to "a very large" ocean wave, and apparently that's how most ppl would think of tsunamis. but actually, it's never limited to such a scale.

in Wikipedia, tsunami "is a series of waves generated when water in a lake or the sea is rapidly displaced on a massive scale. Earthquakes, landslides, volcanic eruptions and large meteorite impacts all have the potential to generate a tsunami. The effects of a tsunami can range from unnoticeable to devastating." this one represents the actual definition more correctly.

so, even if it was only 50cm tall, it's still a tsunami because of its casue.

Also, I seem to remember studying another earthquake measurement scale something like that one. I cant recall the name, but I know it wasnt the Richter scale. Whereas richter measures the inensity of the earthquake, this other scale measured the destruction caused. So, an 8.0 on the richter could be like a 1 or 2 if it occured out in the middle of nowhere. And vice versa, if a low lvl say a 2 or 3 occured in the middle of San Francisco, it could theoretically be a much higher number on this other scale.

that must be Mercalli Intensity.

Japan's own JMA (Japan Meteorological Agency) Seismic Intensity Scale (found the english name) measures how much land shakes, so it's more like Richter scale in that concept. but it also defines the damages caused, so it's like a "Richter scale w/ damage assumption like Mercalli Intensity does." well, i tried lol

The 7 showed on that picture seemed pretty extreme. It would seem if a 7 ever hits Japan, then all of the country will fall into the ocean. >< Hope that never happens.

that picture isn't exaggerated at all.

first attached picture is a Hanshin Expy, a couple of days after the Kobe earthquake.

the 2nd one was taken 6 mon after the Mid Niigata Prefecture earthquake in the city of Nagaoka, which means it was taken in april of this year.

u can see they pretty much correspond to the picture above.

[Macht]

Re: Earth Quake in Japan: OFF EAST COAST OF HONSHU

Yeah, a lot of American dictionaries do really bad at making a definition. Part of the reason is because some dictionaries are trying to make the definition as brief as possible, end result is some definitions get really messed up. Tsunami isn't the only word in the dictionary that is wrong, maybe 30% or 40% of the words in an basic American Dictionary are incorrect to some point. Probably even worse then what I stated.

Its not that much a wonder of why English is so messed up. We can't even define a word correctly

It is good to hear though that the effects were not as bad as that data could bring some people to think.