Could the 6.4 quake (9/9/11) in Vancouver be a foreshock to a mega quake?

reply to post by PuterMan


I was one step ahead of you Thanks for the answer, I was just curious....has there been any activity in Cali or Washington today?

From Prof John Clague's pages

Tsunami sand beneath tidal marsh at Tofino, BC
A layer of clean sand is sharply bounded by peat and mud in a pit dug at a marsh just east of Tofino on the west coast of Vancouver Island. The sand occurs as a sheet that thins and fines landward and contains marine microfossils. It was deposited by a landward surge of seawater at the time of the last great earthquake at the Cascadia subduction zone in A.D. 1700. (photo by John Clague).

Source

Whilst that could be tsunami sand, and this kind of deposition does occur, I am not convinced in this particular instance. The overburden, bearing in mind this is a peat mash or bog, seems wrong - not enough of it - to account for 200 years. I think before accepting his word on this one would need considerably more information, starting with the ft a.s.l. of this pit, if any substantial amount.

The sand occurs as a sheet that thins and fines landward and contains marine microfossils.

That sounds more like a beach

By the way that peat looks very young, even the apparent peat below the sand. Very brown. Not a bit like the black stuff we get here. Sand can be thrown up on to sea shore peat march by severe storms, not just tsunamis.

As I said, much more information needed. A pretty picture and a few words just does not do it for me.

reply to post by PuterMan


Is there any way you could post an example of what an earthquake looks like on the graphs?

reply to post by StealthyKat




See the cute little micro-quake nestling in against the 2.1 for protection

Sorry best I could do at short notice and a little bit too obvious but the micro quakes are good. Probably under 1.0.

There was actually a 1.0 not far away around 2 am but I can't see if on this. Too far away.

Found it - looking at the wrong day. I wondered why since it was right by the seismo.



Sometimes of course they are a bit in your face and obvious

reply to post by PuterMan


I have noticed that there are small earthquakes happening in Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas....is that the New Madrid....Texas has had THREE small earthquakes since yesterday afternoon....isn't that unusual?The Texas quakes were all in the same exact spot. This question is for anyone who can answer it.


34 hours ago West Texas mag 4.4

13 hours ago West Texas mag 2.7

8 hours ago West Texas mag 3.4

7hours ago Oklahoma mag 3.3

20 hours ago Arkansas (Forgot mag)

reply to post by StealthyKat


Not unusual if this is injection or aquifer induced, Yes that is New Madrid. Now ask yourself what is happening in all three areas?

One last plot for you. The not so easy to spot but the same size as Vancouver.



It's OK that was the last one - promise!

reply to post by PuterMan

Awwwww.... that wittle micro quake was precious! LOL! Thanks for going to all that trouble I really appreciate it. As you know, I'm in Louisiana....and those "baby quakes" north of here are getting my attention

reply to post by PuterMan


Yikes....Yellowstone National Park too...a small one, but that's probably normal.

reply to post by StealthyKat

Date/Time UTC,Latitude,Longitude,Magnitude,Depth(Km),Location
2011-09-11 22:47:30, 44.767, -111.095, 2.2, 6.4, Yellowstone National Park. Montana
2011-09-11 01:07:18, 44.701, -110.997, 1.2, 6.6, Yellowstone National Park. Wyoming
2011-09-08 15:54:04, 44.415, -110.780, 1.3, 7.2, Yellowstone National Park. Wyoming
2011-09-06 14:31:02, 44.448, -110.962, 1.2, 7.0, Yellowstone National Park. Wyoming
2011-09-06 13:18:26, 44.617, -110.422, 2.3, 2.0, Yellowstone National Park. Wyoming

Yup nothing unusual about those.

Originally posted by PuterMan
Continued/.............

Now once again with a little more data we can see that this is beginning to look more like a foreshock, main shock, aftershock sequence. So was this a foreshock to a mega quake? I am still hanging my hat on the no stand and saying that this was a reasonably normal event in this area and not likely to be a precursor to a mega-quake.

Apart from anything else mega-quakes this year have been banned as they would spoil my prediction!

edit on 12/9/2011 by PuterMan because: Ah, the inevitable speeling erra

Except some of those on the list are not in same spot...including, I believe, the two prior and at least the 4.2

Glad to see that some are finally making it to a list though!

Oh....and do you have a link to that cool seismo showing the 6.4 quake???

the aftermath to post by muzzy


been a few pages since I posted those maps, and I've just glanced over them sorry

heres the aftershocks, note they are tightly bunched to the NE of the Mainshock
aftershock map
heres the month prior again
month prior map

and both together * the aftershocks are marked with ad (additions)
B4 and After


Note that 2.1ML in amongst the aftershocks? at 3 hours, 41 minutes and 54 seconds prior to the 6.3 mainshock? well that'll be the officially recognised foreshock due to the location.

My thoughts are that this is a one off, there might be a Mag 5 within the next few months, maybe.

You PNWers (Cascadians?) should do what us Wellingtonians do after we get a 5+ close by, go put fresh water in your emergency containers, check your batteries are still charged and eat anything in your emergency food supply thats close to going off, then replace it with fresh supplies .



timeline graph looks a bit sparce, but its pretty much a classic case

reply to post by westcoast


They were all taken from Mt St Helens B201 - B201.PB..EHZ.2011.252

So you think the 4.2 is not an aftershock? You can bet your life the 6.4 triggered it. What area do you define an aftershock occurring? That one was about 140 miles from the 6.4. In Japan we count 200+ miles as aftershocks. Are you saying not because it is just the other side of the boundary because if so you would need to discount a huge number in Japan and Chile.

Actually I removed a number from the Canadian list but at 11 pm after 3 hours sleep the previous night I may have got a bit careless.

reply to post by muzzy


nice maps and graph. Yup I agree, pretty much a classic case.

reply to post by 11:11
I am not talking in ten thousand year intervals if yiu read what i said and read the book it happens every couple of hundred years and is now past due ....IMMINENT

reply to post by PuterMan


I would say he is certainly more of an authority on the subject than you or me....

If anyone on here has GEE, could you take a look at TA240A (Mansfield Louisiana and TA140A Haughton Louisiana? I am just trying to learn this, and to me it looks like small quakes but I want to know if I'm right or wrong....for the untrained eye, it looks like they are small quakes...or is it a truck going by??

TA243A.....the line is totally straight then a burst I've never seen this before, although I'm sure you guys have.......also the microns per second got up to 12....is that anything. I know this thread is about the west coast, but this is where everyone who knows this stuff is

reply to post by PuterMan

One can indeed say a fault has activated because of these readings (IR and electro-magnetic - radon I have my doubts about) and this has been known for some time. Remember the ATS member Roald? Does not seem to have been around for a while but he was involved in this I believe. There are others on ATS who have knowledge of this as well, apart from which it is sort of obvious if you think about it. The trick was / is having the right detectors in the right place and up in the inner space envelope is the best place. This will progress that is for sure. They will also make mistakes, that is for sure. One thing you can also be VERY sure of is that if they have the technology they will NOT put it on a web site for all the doomsday kooks in the world to misinterpret and run round saying there is about to be a mag 10 in NY / Tokyo / Cascadia / SF / New Madrid / Chile / Indonesia etc etc. No, not no way Jose.

Hi Puterman. Thanks for replying to my post. What's grabbed my interest is how science is developing and using the parameters being used in quake prediction. Here's some used in the analysis of precursors to the Tohoku quake:

We retrospectively analyzed the temporal and spatial variations of four different physical parameters - outgoing long wave radiation (OLR), GPS/TEC, Low-Earth orbit tomography and critical frequency foF2.

Source

Anyway, I don't have a bias toward any particular parameters science might use in R&D, at this point. I'm just glad they're working on them! I realize that access is limited because it's a work in progress and no doubt, the technology has advanced beyond what they're sharing, for reasons like you mentioned, such as folks misinterpreting and misusing material to predict quakes. But, we can learn from the information they do share and so it's worth keeping up on, perhaps being mindful of course, that whatever they do they do for their own purposes. For some of us, much of the information here on ATS is new. For others, older. Hopefully, it all mixes together in a way that somehow benefits everyone.
I do remember the name Roald but will have to go back and review the content on older threads. Did find this thread here earlier that looks interesting on quake prediction methodology. But thanks for giving me something to check out!
What are your concerns regarding radon emissions? Without them it seems we wouldn't have the stage set for electron density increases to heat things up for infrared detection and measurement. Or is it the entire LIA theory? Laugh at me, I don't care, I'm a grasshopper during my entire life event here as far as I'm concerned I just want anyone interested here to better understand this theory of Lithosphere-Atmosphere-Ionosphere (LAI) Coupling because it's key to what science is doing in R&D: LIA
I understand that we have a fairly good historical, statistically record of being able to predict where quakes may occur. So this side of things involving precursors is important as well. I don't know what WC was seeing or if it's even related to quake activity. My gut feels it was electromagnetic and could be. It seems like more than several fields of study are coming into play. The main thing is efforts are pursued to help improve the potential of quake prediction and hopefully help save lives and property.

reply to post by PuterMan


Oh....I most definately agree that the 4.2 was triggered by the 6.4, just that it isn't officially recognized as an 'aftershock' due to it's location.

I agree that everything you listed are connected...I probably didn't phrase that right. I just think that if you look at some of the quakes as seperate, triggered events rather than all part of the same energy release it puts it in a different light. Perhaps not though.

From Project Camelot - Kerry Cassidy's Blog
projectcamelotproductions.com...

Below is what was reported on Kerry's Blog:

September 10, 2011

LETTER FROM AN ACADEMIC - AFTERSHOCKS NOT REPORTED

"I am an academic in [REMOVED] and follow your work with appreciation and interest.

I noted the earthquake yesterday in B.C. and your recent comments and concerns re: manipulation of information by USGS.

I am including here proof that information re: aftershocks (including a 4.9) from this earthquake is not being reported by USGS or the official Canadian earthquake site maintained by Natural Resources Canada.

Please post as you wish and/or forward to dutchsinse.

The date and time of the earthquake was Friday, 9 Sept, 3:41 pm EDT or 12:41 pm PDT at the epicenter.

earthquake.usgs.gov...

CBC news posted the following story at 12:59 pm PDT on Sept. 9th although may have been subsequently updated.

www.cbc.ca...

Note the following comment by seismologist Garry Rogers part way through the article, under the subheading "Aftershocks expected"

'Rogers added people in the area shouldn't be surprised if they feel smaller trembles in the coming week. "There's a certainty there will be aftershocks," he said. "Already, we've had half a dozen, with the largest being 4.9. But there's going to be hundreds of aftershocks ... potentially measured over the next week."'

Garry Rogers is a seismologist and senior research scientist with Natural Resources Canada - current bio posted here:

www.niccanada.com...

There is also reference to the 4.9 aftershock (one among "dozens of aftershocks" recorded by "officials") in the following CBC video newsclip - I believe this was shown on the 6 pm evening news yesterday in Vancouver.

www.cbc.ca...#/News/Canada/BC/1258521056/ID=2123927208

At 00:23 the newscaster states that "officials recorded dozens of aftershocks". Later in the video the 4.9 aftershock is referenced in particular (at 1:40).

CTV news also posted a story at 9:21 EDT this morning that refers to the 4.9 aftershock attested by Garry Rogers:

www.ctv.ca...

"Garry Rogers of the Geological Survey of Canada says there will be hundreds of aftershocks. He says there's already been at least a half dozen, the largest of them a 4.9 tremor."

But check out the USGS earthquake list. See attached image file for a snapshot of the list updated as of 11 am EDT this morning: Saturday, 10 Sept 2011 - no aftershock(s) shown.

earthquake.usgs.gov...

Also see the Earthquake Canada section of the Natural Resources Canada (NRC) site (where Rogers is a seismologist). I have also attached an image file of the list for Southwestern BC, which I snapped at 11:01 am EDT, Saturday, 10 Sept 2011. No aftershocks shown.

earthquakescanada.nrcan.gc.ca...

Regional detail:

earthquakescanada.nrcan.gc.ca...

In the event that the information changes at the "real time" USGS or NRC site, the attached images will confirm that the information re: at least one large aftershock was not publicly reported almost a day later.

Here is a copy of the message I just sent USGS (via their message page). They have always answered me in the past with a personal response. I will let you know what they say.

I am wondering why none of the larger after-shocks have been recorded by USGS for the 6.4 Vancouver quake on Sept. 9th?

According to local reports, and by simply looking at some of the near-by seismograph stations, it is very clear that there were several above the 3.5 threshold.

Earthquake Canada finally started listing some of them on Monday, but also in contradiction to local reports, they only have one above the the 3.5 USGS reporting threshold:
2011/09/09 19:44:43 49.36N 127.21W 35.1 4.5ML 88 km WSW of Gold R.,BC

Yet....this is STILL not listed on your site.

In light of the fact that a lack of after-shocks can sometimes be an indicator of a possible larger event (making the 6.4 a fore-shock), I would think the USGS would want to keep the public informed with accurate information. Especially since we just had a three month early ETS event in the same area.

Could you tell me why these aren't being reported?

Thank you for your time,

Txxxxxxx

Also of note....small quake showng on my nearest station to vancouver....but it is a bit distant.