Earthquakes strike off SA coast.

More earthquakes in Australia, and 3 in the same day.
We must be going thru some changes, these quakes seems to increase in numbers and strenght.


Source Link

THREE earthquakes have been recorded off the South Australian coast today.

The earthquakes, measuring between 4.1 and 4.5 on the Richter scale, happened early this morning about 300km off the coast near Mt Gambier in the state's south east.

Primary Industries and Resources SA seismologist David Love said the earthquakes happened in an unusual area, further offshore than they would have expected.

He says the earthquakes couldn't be felt by people but were recorded by instruments as far away as far north Queensland.

Source Nr.2
This is the whole story..Not much but...


[edit on 6/8/2009 by ChemBreather]

It'll be interesting to watch.
I think you WILL start seeing more and more earthquakes.
Is this area south of Austrailia a tsunami-prone area?

reply to post by ChemBreather


Hey Chem,

I'm surprised you didn't get more respons to this thread because of it's strange location. I can understand why scientist would expect it to be further out to sea because that's were the faultline runs between the Antartic plate and the Australian plate.

see.....

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/files/d013c1f0360a9758.jpg[/atsimg]

But this quake was smack bang in the middle of the australian plate....what's up with that???

Unfortunately my knowledge op tectonic plates etc. is very (very, very, very) limited but i noticed a similar quake of the westcoast of Africa in a place that you don't see very often aswell (also in the middle of the African plate).....

Hope it helps and i will be following this thread...S+F for reporting this.

Peace

Arent the recent quakes out in the sea these last months along the plate's also ?

This isnt the first quakes down there the last months either, NZ and Australia have had quite afew..

Should be intresting to see an overlay of recent quakes and a tectonics map.

reply to post by ChemBreather


If you can do the overlaying part it would be great but here are the two images.....

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/files/8e05b47a30f0f412.gif[/atsimg]

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/files/d013c1f0360a9758.jpg[/atsimg]

Good luck!!!

Peace

Okay here we go......

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/files/fdcf4d2e93d0b42d.gif[/atsimg]

Don't let my MSPaint skills fool you....i'm not a professional artist

But i've circled the three places that are most interesting. As you can see most earthquakes happen along a faultline between two tectonic plates.

Now i'm not sure but i believe geological events are pretty common in Hawai because of it's location on a hotspot in the earth and the tectonic plate running over it due northwest.....

Greece, on the Eurasian plate, also is not on a faultline of two tectonic plates but earthquakes are not uncommon there.

The Yellowstone and New Madrid area are also not on a faultline.(ancient vulcano, i believe)

So we have the west african coast, the south australian coast and the middle of the eurasian plate. Now the last one i have see before and they are usually good sized earthquakes but for the the first two....i have no idea...

Peace

Edit: i see now that i forgot to draw the Scotia plate. Oh well...use your imagination..

[edit on 6/8/2009 by operation mindcrime]

reply to post by operation mindcrime


You know, quaks are only intresting when it hits close to home.
Like I posted about some quakes down in china, 500,000 on the run, no one cares, isnt close enough to home !

Eeeeek!! I read SA in the thread headline and automatically read South Africa. In the words of an honored ATS'er, PluckyNoonez, I almost went into panic sex mode.

I was sitting here all comfy in the knowledge that this country seems to be excluded from the hateful earthquake, shifting tectonic plate evil that plagues many countries, and was almost rudely awakened.

That being said, I hope South Australians will be ok and survive to play many a great rugby game against us.

reply to post by operation mindcrime


208 quakes on that map, not too much is it ?

i see California is on an fault line there, and there was 4 quakes there a few days ago too.

You should see my drawing skills, I have this Logitac g5 mouse, I cant even draw a strait line with the ruler tool..

reply to post by deltaalphanovember


what is this :

I almost went into panic sex mode.

Think S.Africa is spared from this, is there much gold mines ther ??

reply to post by ChemBreather


I can relate to that but on the other hand.....according to my sence of logic, it would seem that if a major earthquake hit it would also mean one tectonic plate now has a little more room and thus releaving other pressure points on the other side of the plate......and so i can imagine some pople would find it not interesting to know were the pressure release was ,as long as it is not in their backyard.

Peace

Originally posted by ChemBreather
reply to post by operation mindcrime

 

208 quakes on that map, not too much is it ?

fairly normal, i'd say. It swing between 150 and 250 on average. (some poster in an other thread noted that when the number is around 150 a major pressure releave usualy follows soon after, don't know if there is any science to that tho)

i see California is on an fault line there, and there was 4 quakes there a few days ago too.

Isn't that thing called The San Adreas fault line or something and it's gonna let the lizard people slide into the pacific ocean (I'm kinding here, i just thought of Bill Higgs)

You should see my drawing skills, I have this Logitac g5 mouse, I cant even draw a strait line with the ruler tool..

I've got a laptop with a mousepad and a very uncomfortable chair...!!!

Peace

reply to post by ChemBreather


Panic Sex - roughly this is what happens when the End of the World is nigh and many people resort to copulation with anybody and everybody in a frenzied orgy of hedonism.

"is there gold in South Africa" - of course! Our streets in Johannesburg are paved with the stuff - didn't ya know? I sprinkle gold dust on my cereal. Helps for indigestion.

Originally posted by deltaalphanovember
reply to post by ChemBreather

 

Panic Sex - roughly this is what happens when the End of the World is nigh and many people resort to copulation with anybody and everybody in a frenzied orgy of hedonism.

"is there gold in South Africa" - of course! Our streets in Johannesburg are paved with the stuff - didn't ya know? I sprinkle gold dust on my cereal. Helps for indigestion.

Nah , I never been there.
But panic sex sounds like some sort of movies one can rent.

My mum lives down that way ill ask her if she heard any reorts of it next time i call her.
South Australia is not really a hub for earthquakes at least not for any larger ones, i remember a couple of small tremors but thats been it.
Having said that, the Mt Gambier region is surrounded by stunning blue lakes which are ancient volcano's.

"Ash from the Mt Gambier area has been dated at about 4,700 years old and about 1,400 years old, indicating that the vents were certainly active at these times, though possibly for a considerable period before and after."[2]

Mount Gambier is thought to have formed by a mantle plume center called the East Australia hotspot which may currently lie offshore.[1]

This area is part of the UNESCO-endorsed Kanawinka Geopark.
Of the original four lakes found within the calderas, only two remain

en.wikipedia.org...(volcano)

The second part is quite curious mentioning a plume centre which possibly lies offshore.


[edit on 6-8-2009 by pazcat]

reply to post by operation mindcrime

Earthquakes are not limited to plate boundaries.

An intraplate earthquake is an earthquake that occurs in the interior of a tectonic plate, whereas an interplate earthquake is one that occurs at a plate boundary.

en.wikipedia.org...

True that
South Australia actually has quite a large shatter belt area around the Spencer Gulf and Adelaide itself is directly above it. I wish i could find the picture of the belt or similar to the one our geology teacher showed us back in school.
Still Mt Gambier is a long way from Adelaide but not to far away from the Earthquake hazard zone that the department of housing reference.

Just open the pdf link on the page

www.planningsa.gov...

Found an interesting site regarding eartquakes, fault lines and volcanos with some goverment maps.
home.iprimus.com.au...

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by operation mindcrime

 

Earthquakes are not limited to plate boundaries.

An intraplate earthquake is an earthquake that occurs in the interior of a tectonic plate, whereas an interplate earthquake is one that occurs at a plate boundary.

en.wikipedia.org...

Hey, I just wondered, are the plates in different densities? like one tectonic plate is thicker than another, and if so, do you think one would slide upon another if the pressure get too great, like two sheets of paper?

reply to post by ChemBreather

It's called subduction: