What's going on in Indonesia? Huge Quakes!

A little info, about the biggest quake:

link: news.yahoo.com...

The 7.2-magnitude undersea quake struck at 1:34 am local time (1734 GMT Wednesday), prompting Indonesia's geophysics agency to issue a tsunami alert, which was later revoked.

"A total of 42 people have been injured, with ten of them seriously," health ministry crisis centre head Rustam Pakaya told AFP by text message.

Nearly 700 homes as well as office buildings, schools and health clinics were damaged in the remote Talaud Islands in North Sulawesi province, local government spokesman Manurat said.

"About 309 buildings have been heavily damaged and 390 others suffered light to medium damage," he said.

Thousands of residents were camped outdoors on high ground out of fear of aftershocks and tsunamis.

"An estimated 5,000 residents have fled their homes," Manurat said.

I will keep looking for news of what is going on in Indonesia on the net, since it seems our news has not said a word about it.

Nothing new for Indonesia

We get earth tremors all the time here in Darwin, I mean we are less than 100kms from the souhtern edge of the country. This area is both active constantly with volcanic and earthquake events

Originally posted by OzWeatherman
Nothing new for Indonesia

We get earth tremors all the time here in Darwin, I mean we are less than 100kms from the souhtern edge of the country. This area is both active constantly with volcanic and earthquake events

I beg to differ, yes there are quakes there often, but not has big and huge as these, one after another. This is like an area getting small swarms, but these are huge swarms. Besides there are some things happening with marine animals in the Pacific, all the way up to Hawaii.

Fish are dying all around the Pacific, that is also what makes what is going on there, as something to watch closely.

[edit on 13-2-2009 by questioningall]

quakes today - so far:

MAG UTC DATE-TIME
y/m/d h:m:s LAT
deg LON
deg DEPTH
km Region
MAP 5.6 2009/02/13 12:37:51 3.809 126.836 36.3 KEPULAUAN TALAUD, INDONESIA
MAP 5.0 2009/02/13 11:31:53 3.976 126.834 66.8 KEPULAUAN TALAUD, INDONESIA
MAP 5.2 2009/02/13 07:56:09 3.766 126.862 54.7 KEPULAUAN TALAUD, INDONESIA
MAP 5.0 2009/02/13 06:28:46 4.067 126.792 64.1 KEPULAUAN TALAUD, INDONESIA
MAP 5.0 2009/02/13 04:28:15 4.197 127.023 9.4 KEPULAUAN TALAUD, INDONESIA
MAP 5.0 2009/02/13 03:29:00 3.845 126.944 81.7 KEPULAUAN TALAUD, INDONESIA
MAP 5.3 2009/02/13 02:24:26 3.750 126.677 71.3 KEPULAUAN TALAUD, INDONESIA
MAP 5.4 2009/02/13 02:17:51 -30.793 -178.217 58.6 KERMADEC ISLANDS, NEW ZEALAND

Just an observation, but why is there less emphasis on the supervolcano Toba than there is Yellowstone? Not sure if there are any Toba threads, but they would be outnumbered by the Yellowstone threads thats for sure.

Toba is bigger. 100 million people are at its mercy if it blows, and they will all die. Its in a location thats seismically unstable. It went off 75,000 years ago and brought mankind to his knees.

But Yellowstone has little earthquake flurries of about 3.5. The surrounding population is relatively small, and its destructive output has diminished over time. And while currently overdue it isn't making a whole lot of moves to show us that its coming alive.

That 9.0 tsunami quake was near Sumatra where Toba sleeps.
Does that not bother you? Does it not bother you that there are huge quakes all over in that area? Doesn't seem like it bothers you.

I guess if it ain't in the US, its no big deal, right?

If it does blow, cannibalism will be en vogue because of its location to the worlds largest population centers.

Red Cross and charity relief won't be able to help them because you'll be too busy trying to save yourselves before the food runs out, and it will too.

But I guess thats not as interesting as a stake through the heart of a super power.

reply to post by CAPT PROTON

Yeah they don't give Toba enough credit; it is resurgent like Yellowstone is but is not a lot bigger than Yellowstone. These large earthquakes there are quite suspicious. The Yellowstone volcanic system is still among the worlds largest. These super-volcanoes can still drop 6 feet of ash 800-1000 miles down wind and that can be deadly, so more than 100 million are actually in danger. But I think that the volcanic Winter after is short and furious 3-7 years, with super storms that lay down several sheets of ice at the poles. Toba is a good topic though but I cannot find that much info on it only a few papers.
.

Putting its potential impact aside, Yellowstone has way more coverage, not only by the newsmedia but also scientifical (we've got realtime webicorders, water flow measurements, gps deformation data, webcams, the YVO and Univeristy of Utah websites and their staff more or less ready to reply to any intelligent question, USGS, ANSS earthquake database, etc.). There so much more readily available data to discuss about.

[edit on 2009/2/13 by Shirakawa]

two more large ones since last posting of them:

MAG UTC DATE-TIME
y/m/d h:m:s LAT
deg LON
deg DEPTH
km Region
MAP 5.6 2009/02/13 16:49:12 3.694 127.089 35.0 KEPULAUAN TALAUD, INDONESIA
MAP 5.2 2009/02/13 14:38:30 4.199 126.875 35.0 KEPULAUAN TALAUD, INDONESIA

Since the volcano Toba has been mentioned, I decided to research it:
Very interesting:

site: www.andaman.org...

Also: www.andaman.org...

Prior to the eruption of 73,000 years ago, Toba had produced at least two earlier major eruptions 800,000 and 500,000 years ago. The earlier outbreaks were not as large as the colossal eruption of 73,000 years ago which is the only eruption of class VEI 8 to have taken place since primates have appeared on planet earth. The famous Krakatoa eruption (also near Sumatra) of 1883 was a minor event by comparison. The following charts and drawing try to illustrate the sequence of events of the eruption 73,000 years ago.

size of Toba compared to Yellowstone:

from site: www.articlesextra.com...

Toba, Indonesia's super volcano, almost wiped out mankind
73,000 years ago the eruption of an Indonesian super volcano was within inches of obliterating the whole of mankind. Only a few survived. After the Tsunami, Indonesia’s volcanoes have once again become active and the people are afraid.

[edit on 13-2-2009 by questioningall]

and their still coming 14/2
yes also i have not seen such a concentration
apparently a 500% increase in quakes since the 60's worldwide
my explaination PX

six.pairlist.net...

yowusa.com...

Originally posted by CAPT PROTON
Just an observation, but why is there less emphasis on the supervolcano Toba than there is Yellowstone? Not sure if there are any Toba threads, but they would be outnumbered by the Yellowstone threads thats for sure.

Toba is bigger. 100 million people are at its mercy if it blows, and they will all die. Its in a location thats seismically unstable. It went off 75,000 years ago and brought mankind to his knees.

But Yellowstone has little earthquake flurries of about 3.5. The surrounding population is relatively small, and its destructive output has diminished over time. And while currently overdue it isn't making a whole lot of moves to show us that its coming alive.

That 9.0 tsunami quake was near Sumatra where Toba sleeps.
Does that not bother you? Does it not bother you that there are huge quakes all over in that area? Doesn't seem like it bothers you.

I guess if it ain't in the US, its no big deal, right?

If it does blow, cannibalism will be en vogue because of its location to the worlds largest population centers.

Red Cross and charity relief won't be able to help them because you'll be too busy trying to save yourselves before the food runs out, and it will too.

But I guess thats not as interesting as a stake through the heart of a super power.

I've been yelling about Toba since the Yellowstone tread started. Everyone seemed to ignore me. Well. HA. I WAS RIGHT.

These quakes are happening in a seismic zone that is at the conjunction of 4 tectonic plates. The Australian and Eurasian(moving NE and SE respectively) plates are pushing against the Phillipine and Pacific plates(which are moving W & WNW). It'd be interesting to see what's going on under the ocean at the convergence of the these 4 plates where all of these earthquakes seem to be occurring. There could be a massive underwater volcano forming and\or actively erupting or who knows what else going on down there. I'm sure it's a pretty hostile environment whatever is happening.

Tectonic Plate Motion Map for Area

reply to post by Necrosis



I was also reading, today, that this is also causing all the EQ's in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

I have been looking up the info for that area. What is interesting is they only have a # of EQ's in PR and VI up until 2003, since then they have not put up how many have happened every year. I have also been doing searches on how many have happened there for the last few years, but am coming up empty.

I did read, that the Indonesian fault is pushing PR's fault and the quakes are related, possibly. So, does that mean bigger ones are coming for PR?

link: redsismica.uprm.edu...

During 2003 the PRSN located 947 tremors,

During 2002 the PRSN located 967 earthquakes

During the year 2001, 967 seismic events were reported

During year 2000, 735 events were located

Five hundred and eighty six earthquakes were located by the PRSN in 1999.

The PRSN located 469 earthquakes in the Puerto Rico region for 1997

The PRSN located 721 earthquakes in the Puerto Rico region for 1996

The PRSN located 644 earthquakes in the Puerto Rico region 1995

The PRSN located 816 events in the PR region 1994

The PRSN located 787 earthquakes in the PR region 1993

The PRSN located 678 earthquakes in the Puerto Rico region during 1992

During 1991 there were 364 local earthquakes registered by the network

During 1990 there were 314 local earthquakes registered by the network

Notice anything about those numbers??


Huge increases in amount of quakes....... but they didn't list the last 6 years.... why?

I know when I lived down in the Virgin Islands from 1979 until 1990 - there was only 1 quake that was felt the whole time..... we did not have quakes like there are now. People down there, have been feeling them too.

I am putting this in, due to reading, one has something to do with the other.