Quake Watch 2011

Agarta suggested I present a theory to Puter Man, this is something I asked in a tiny thread yesterday.
It seems RSOE EDIS is now showing the global map with areas of darkness and light so you can tell when it's daytime in different parts of the world. At the time of my OP the terminator of light to dark was heavy with quake activity, virtually an entire line east along California all the way up to Alaska and in the West along Greece Turkey and Italy.
My question is, can the time of day be linked to quake activity? Are areas exposed to solar activity more prone to quakes along fault lines? I don't know anything about this stuff and my "theory" is based on a very brief observation of a map so I won't be shocked if I'm way off target.

reply to post by PuterMan

If you would rather answer Trublbrwings question in their thread heres the link
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Hi there. I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this - apologies if I've got it wrong. I am hoping that there might be someone here who is able to decipher a seismograph reading for me? I'm concerned about the look of some of our drums here in New Zealand. We've had a very giggly afternoon here in Christchurch - lots of small, shallow earthquakes which has become pretty "normal" for us lately - but it's the next drum up from us which has me concerned.

Here is the national overview - you can see all the lines showing movement around our region
www.geonet.org.nz...

Here are the "Canterbury" drums that they've put together on one page so we can "see" our action as we feel it lol.
www.geonet.org.nz...

And here is the KHZ drum - this drum isn't as far as I've ever seen prone to "noise" and is pretty close to a large off shore "trench". This concerns me a bit - I think the off shore bit out there is a subduction zone?
www.geonet.org.nz...

So put me at rest... this is normal right?

reply to post by Evltre


Hi, KHZ looks fairly and squarely on land to me so it is possible that some of that is a bit of wind. There is a small quake in there but I would say the rest was nothing to be concerned about.

I have no doubt muzzy will be along soon and reassure you.

PS. This is it from IRIS KHZ.NZ.10.HHZ.2011.115

Originally posted by PuterMan
reply to post by mugger

 

Strange you should post that just as I was coming on to post these, which are not significant but which i found interesting.

Date/Time UTC,Latitude,Longitude,Magnitude,Depth(Km),Location
2011-04-24 09:25:29, 35.940, 14.830, 3.4, 1.0, Malta Region
2011-04-24 09:21:20, 35.960, 14.820, 3.6, 2.0, Malta Region

Heineken partying heavily? No, they are actually off the coast of Malta in the flat plateau that leads from the Sicily-Malta escarpment towards the island of Malta.

As far as my lists go these are the only quakes in this area (Malta) in the last 2 years.

hehe..was partying true

felt the 4 of them..

i was in my hometown Senglea only 32km from the epicenter

it was quiet exciting since as you said we dont get much activity here...the last one..the 4.1 lasted for about 7 sec...windows rattled a little..also noticed rings forming in my glass of beer

reply to post by Evltre


Not sure what they are, very faint, not even Mag 2 size by the look of it, almost like they are all S-waves.

followup to post by muzzy

EMSC are not budging still 5.7mb

the Russians came up with 6.0mb and 5.9Ms
www.ceme.gsras.ru...

some information regarding Malta Quakes :

Earthquake damage in Malta and Gozo

December 10, 1542: Some one-floor dwellings collapsed.

January 11, 1693: The most damaging earthquake known to date. Mdina cathedral suffered partial collapse and many buildings in the old city were seriously damaged. Reports say that all houses in Valletta needed repair, and some churches collapsed. Inhabitants spent nights outside their homes.

February 20, 1743: Several churches damaged; many sections of hills in Gozo crumbled.

October 12, 1856: Almost all houses in Valletta, and many houses in other villages and Gozo sustained serious cracks to their walls. Many church domes were damaged. References to collapse of a chapel on Filfla.

August 27, 1886: The Court of Justice in Valletta, some churches and many buildings are damaged.

September 30, 1911: Many houses suffer significant damage. Several rural constructions destroyed. Major cracks appear in domes and steeples of several churches as well as the walls of several public buildings in Victoria. Some landslides reported. In Gozo, everybody abandons their homes.

September 18, 1923: Cracks in church domes and walls of several buildings. Majority of people rush onto the streets.

The impact of a tremor depends on its epicentre. However, Dr Galea said a tremor higher than six on the Richter scale in Malta was unlikely.

Still, the area around the island is moderately active, with up to 10 shakes a month sometimes recorded at the seismic unit.

Source : We cannot be complacent about earthquakes - expert

"10 shakes a month sometimes recorded ", please note the sometimes

Activity since January 2011 :

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/6723e6f90159.jpg[/atsimg]

the above pictures shows only two tremors from January, the rest all April

There seems to be some un common activity going on in April...could these events indicate a stronger quake on the way?

My Country is not yet prepared to deal with an earthquake event of some magnitude

reply to post by Evltre


Just to satisfy my own curiosity I pulled the waveform for that period from IRIS this morning for 03:30 UTC to 05:30 UTC.

The two sound files below are the 'noisiest' part of this section (1) High pass filtered 20Hz to remove all low end (seismic) sounds and sampled at 2000Hz (20x speed) and (2) Low Pass filtered 6Hz to remove everything from the Earth tide upwards.sampled at 4000Hz (40x speed)

High Pass(20Hz) @ 2000Hz
Low Pass(6Hz) @ 4000Hz

You can hear the interference in the Hi pass sample. You can still hear it in the low pass sample, but not as defined, but there are no seismic sounds at all.

Not in the audio files, and just at the start of the section analysed, there is indeed a very small not too distant earthquake, the one that muzzy and I spotted. I have not included it as it means I cannot enhance the sounds sufficiently.

Most of the underlying wavy signal is microseisms on roughly a 5 to 6 second frequency.

Basically the long and short of the techno-babble is "Nothing to worry about".

reply to post by heineken


Thanks for all that info. Very interesting.

Which data source are you using for the quakes?

I only have this from USGS/EMSC for the past 365 days searching on Malta

Date/Time UTC,Latitude,Longitude,Magnitude,Depth(Km),Location
2011-04-24 13:02:14, 35.900, 14.820, 4.1, 10.0, Malta Region
2011-04-24 09:25:28, 35.813, 14.885, 3.5, 19.9, Malta Region
2011-04-24 09:21:21, 35.930, 14.840, 3.5, 10.0, Malta Region

Edit to add: Of course it is not actually earthquakes you are experiencing, just the West bombing the hell out of Libya

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/74009f1eafc6.png[/atsimg]

reply to post by muzzy


They budged. They now have it as 6.2

They were told no doubt!

follow up to follow up to post by muzzy

Eventually 9 hours, 16 minutes, 9 seconds after the event................ 6.2Mw (revised 2011-04-25 08:24 UTC)
www.emsc-csem.org...

Not a big issue in the overall scheme of things, but thats pretty slow IMO

A guy needs to know what colour to make his icons

I'm not too sure about the reliability of EMSC, I find their search page is easier to use than NEIC, but I have already noticed 4 New Zealand events that still had erroneous locations months after the events.

They have the Sept 2010 Darfield quake located north east of Sheffield, between the Waimakiriri River and View Hill rather than the generlly accepted location of Greendale
7.0 Mw, 2010/09/03 16:35:45, -43.29, 172, 5, South Island Of New Zealand, emsc
7.4ML (7.1Mw), 2010/9/3 16:35:41, -43.55231, 172.17435, 11, SE of Charing Cross, Canterbury, geonet
and
The 5.352ML Tokomaru Bay quake of March 25 2011 is still showing as being offshore Tolaga Bay when it was actually on land
5.0 mb, 2011/03/25 08:39:29, -38.39, 178.46, 52, Off E. Coast Of N. Island, emsc
5.352 ML, 2011/3/25 8:39:32, -38.08367, 178.23938, 63, NW of Tokomaru Bay, East Cape, geonet
and
The Kaituna, Wairarapa quake of Nov 28 2010 is showing as being on the east side of the Wairarapa Valley rather than on the west side under Mt. Dagg some 25km away
5.0 M, 2010/11/28 01:22:12, -41.04, 175.75, 66, North Island Of New Zealand, emsc
5.23ML, 2010/11/28 1:22:13-40.8762, 175.53343, 25, N of Kaituna, Wairarapa, geonet
and
The Lyttelton quake of Feb 2011 is shown as being shown as being offshore South New Brighton Beach, when it was actually near the Lyttleton Tunnel entrance
6.3 Mw, 2011/02/21 23:51:41, -43.53, 172.76, 6, South Island Of New Zealand, emsc
6.3 Mw, 2011/2/21 23:51:42-43.59798, 172.71414, 5, Lyttelton, Canterbury, geonet
and thats just the few I checked

Makes you wonder how many other quakes have flawed epicenter locations Globally

And I dare not even cross check USGS's data


I've just added this Disclaimer to my 5.0+Quakes page
The hypocentral coordinates and magnitude estimates are obtained using the data available at the time of the estimate. New data or analyses may change the actual estimates of the earthquake location and magnitude. Earthquake parameters may be derived through automatic analysis, and no further quality check is done by EMSC. EMSC does not provide any implicit or explicit guarantee. Any risk derived from the improper use of the data is assumed by the user.

reply to post by muzzy


Had a look at USGS for you muzzy.

Date/Time UTC,Latitude,Longitude,Magnitude,Depth(Km),Location
2011-02-21 23:51:42, -43.583, 172.701, 6.3, 5.0, S. Isl Of Nz

I would say USGS did not do too badly on that one. I have seen worse!

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/4dd22e2b89bb.png[/atsimg]

The Kaituna, Wairarapa quake of Nov 28 2010

usgs, 2010-11-28T01:22:11.000Z -41.0362, 175.7514 5.00 Mb 66.2000
gntnz, 2010-11-28T01:22:13.167Z -40.8762, 175.5334 5.23 ML 25.4966
emsc, 2010-11-28T01:22:11.900Z -41.0400, 175.7500 5.00 M 66.0000

Note USGS and EMSC have it in almost the same place/depth. Geonet is different on both.

The 5.352ML Tokomaru Bay quake of March 25 2011

Date/Time UTC,Latitude,Longitude,Magnitude,Depth(Km),Location
EMSC 2011-03-25 08:39:29, -38.390, 178.460, 5.0, 52.0, Off E. Coast Of N. Island N.Z.
USGS 2011-03-25 08:39:31, -38.353, 178.190, 4.9, 62.3, Off N. Coast Of The N. Isl Of Nz
GeoNet 2011-03-25 08:39:31, -38.083, 178.239, 5.3, 62.6, Takapau

The Sept 2010 Darfield quake (USGS)

Date/Time UTC,Latitude,Longitude,Magnitude,Depth(Km),Location
2010-09-03 16:35:46, -43.530, 172.120, 7.0, 5.0, S. Isl Of Nz

Guess USGS did not do too badly on that either. (The big red dot)
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/ac55baaacfac.png[/atsimg]

And the moral of the story is?

Don't trust any of them!

They all use the same data - and I do mean literally the same data. How can they get such varied results?

reply to post by PuterMan


Thanks for doing that, I was going to do the same thing to see the differences, but got sidetracked.

EMSC seems to be consistantly off the mark, I seen that with some of the Chilean quakes a few months ago too.

They do go back and change the magnitudes ( as we just seen with the Sulawesi quake) but don't seem to recheck the epi centers.

Maybe I should do Geofon instead of EMSC

Their Global overview map thingy is pretty poor
geofon.gfz-potsdam.de...


Hmmmmm, maybe not, I just checked what they had for Darfield
2010/09/03 16:35:44, 6.7, 43.44,S, 172.59,E, 10, M, South Island, New Zealand,
6.7
I asked them a few months ago what Magnitude they use and the reply was a "composite"

and thats just NW of Belfast, 37km NE of where USGS and Geonet put it (and the big rip in the ground is )

I'll check a few others before deciding to swap over or not. I have always followed Geofon because they pick up a lot more of the Southern Ocean quakes than the others do.

I'd do the Russians but thats too hard, you have to do it day by day, like the Chileans


Well I checked those others;
Geofon didn't even have the Kaituna 28/11/2010 quake

and the Feb 6.3 Lyttelton quake was located offshore North New Brighton Beach, even further away than EMSC had

the only one that was close was the Tokomaru Bay one, at least it was ON shore, only 4km south of what Geonet had.

Like you said "Don't trust any of them! "




Maybe I'll do a composite map of all of them
It would just have to be the last 7 days though, just too many events to track back 8-30, 31-60 etc days, would be too messy.
I'll have to make some new icons

M 5.2 hit Tonga about half an hour ago.

4.9 downgraded from an initial 5.1 RAT ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN ISLANDS, ALASKA

* Tuesday, April 26, 2011 at 01:28:36 UTC
* Monday, April 25, 2011 at 04:28:36 PM at epicenter

Depth: 36 km (22.4 miles)

earthquake.usgs.gov...

reply to post by MoorfNZ


Whoa.....a lil too close for comfort!

The U.S. hasn't seen any quakes in the 5's in a long time, right?

This will be an interesting week!

Alaska tonight:

1.9 CENTRAL ALASKA62.61°N -149.91°W 11Km Deep 2011-04-25 18:53:41 UTC2011-04-25 10:53:41 LOCAL AK10218793

4.7 SOUTHERN ALASKA59.06°N -152.58°W 61Km Deep 2011-04-25 19:29:15 UTC2011-04-25 11:29:15 LOCAL AK10218844

4.9 RAT ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN ISLANDS, ALASKA51.31°N 179.16°E 41Km Deep 2011-04-26 01:28:36 UTC2011-04-25 16:28:36 LOCAL USC0002YWL

earthquake.usgs.gov...

reply to post by muzzy


I find it staggering that these agencies can be so far out. Much as I hate the concept of global anything there is definitely a case here for a truly GLOBAL seismic centre rather than all these ones that say they are but really are not.

I blame the programmers since the data is the same, it must be the programs. Of course if the programmer has allowed the scientists to 'tweak' the parameters then that would explain the mess. Scientists should not be allowed to touch anything.

I still blame the programmers for allowing them to do it.

4.6 and 5.7 .. worth noting

Magnitude 5.7 - GUERRERO, MEXICO

2.5 OKLAHOMA34.84°N -97.50°W 5Km Deep 2011-04-26 13:06:01 UTC2011-04-26 08:06:01 LOCAL US2011KEBD

earthquake.usgs.gov...

And indeed, the Mexico quake today is absolutely worth noting!!