Ok, lately Ive been seeing all kinds of unusual and far out theories about the cause of the recent earthquakes in the Indonesian and Pacific regions
of the earth. In actual fact, the earthquakes we have been seeing are nothing out of the ordinary. The are not created by HAARP, they are not caused
by drought, or anything meteorological, and they are certainly not caused by underground nuclear devices.
The pacific ocean is surrounded on all sides by several tectonic plates. It is approximately 40,000km's in length and influences several continents,
which include, Australasia, Asia, North American and South America. This area is known as "The Ring of Fire" (see image below). Movements of these
tectonic plates and the movement of rock within smaller fault lines located in these zones.
Before we move on, I will define the different types of movement these plates undergo.
1. Divergence- Two plates moving away from each other
2. Transformation- Two plates slide against each other
3. Subduction (or convergance)- One plate sliding underneath another plate (usually occurs when ocean plates slide under continental or land based
plates). Volcanoes are and end result of subduction, as one plate is forced upward creating a peak, or chain of peaks.
4. There is a more complex event, where three plates border one another and cause a mixture of the 3 above principles
Each of the plates located within the ring of fire is undergoing at least one of these processes. The map below shows the direction in which each
plate is moving. Its interesting to notice that at points of convergence, there are numerous volcanoes or mountain ranges, caused by millions of years
of a plate being forced upwards.
The movements of these plates cause approximately 90% of he worlds earthquakes. So as you can see, earthquakes in these zones are not out of the
ordinary, nor is the frequency in which they occur.
90% of the world's earthquakes and 81% of the world's largest earthquakes occur along the Ring of Fire.
This is followed by the following
The next most seismic region (56% of earthquakes and 17% of the world's largest earthquakes) is the Alpide belt which extends from Java to
Sumatra through the Himalayas, the Mediterranean, and out into the Atlantic. The Mid-Atlantic Ridge is the third most prominent earthquake
belt.
This map shows the density of earthquake events. Notice the densest areas border the ring of fire
Again, the eathquakes and volcanic activity in the Indonesian area is not unusual. The plate movements in this area go through a process of
subduction, where the Indian plate pushes up against the Burma and Sunda plates to the west. This boundary is the outer area of the ring of fire, and
is extremely volatile, as massive subduction events often occur.
The boxing day Tsunami in 2004 was result of one of these major subduction movements. It has been proven that there was a movement of 20m over a
length of 1600km on the Sunda plate.
More to come on this (prob tomorrow its late here), but until then what is everyones opinion of the above information?
References
en.wikipedia.org...
www.crystalinks.com...
www.crystalinks.com...
quake.wr.usgs.gov...
(mod edit, added a space in title)
[edit on 16/10/09 by DontTreadOnMe]
Mod Edit: All Caps – Please Review This Link.
[edit on 19 Oct 09 by Gools]
