reply to post by pheonix358
I don't trust USGS, too many missing quakes.
Macquarie Is is in Australia. The first series were under Tasmania then they moved Easterly.
I don't trust any of them
Macquarie seismologically speaking is in Macquarie according to the Flinn-Engdahl classifications. There are two relating to Macquarie:
North Of Macquarie Island (11/165)
Macquarie Island Region (11/167)
This provides a location that is understood by seismologists and is pretty much politically neutral.
By the same token one would refer to the Falklands as:
Falkland Islands Region (10/148)
Any global provider should use the FE region names and most do but where the feed is picked up by web sites and only contains lat/lon then the
resulting location name will depend on the software they are using to do the checking and these vary.
In populated areas further qualification by a county, province, administrative area, or city and/or town is OK but the USGS habit on the
newfangledinteractivemapthingy of referring to offshore locations by the name of the nearest town on land is HIGHLY confusing and EXCEEDINGLY stupid
when they don't mention off shore.
Example "M6.2 - Isangel, Vanuatu" as given for a quake on the newfangledinteractivemapthingy.
No the earthquake was 84 km OFFSHORE Isangel, Vanuatu. They seem to be able to manage it for some but not for others. "M6.2 84km Offshore Isangel,
Vanuatu" would be much better.
I looked at "Brandon, Oregon" the other day for the 5.9/6.0 and for a second went OMG, until I realised it was USGS being stupid. It should have said
"Offshore Brandon, Oregon".
When all the quakes were going off after Japan last year it was a nightmare.
Whilst we did get "Offshore ...." we also got "Near the Coast of ...." which actually most of the time meant on land
Why? "Near the coast of" could also be offshore. If it is on land then state the proximate city. If it is in the water state "Offshore". "Near" is a
meaningless obfuscation.
You can imagine the fleeting panic for someone opening the map and seeing "M7.6 New York" when it was say 120 km offshore New York.
If you are going to quote a town or city it should by ONLY for earthquakes on land unless you specify as in the above example "M7.6 120km Offshore New
York, USA", or alternatively "M7.6 Offshore East Coast of the United States of America".
I guess the problem is probably that the computer is stupid and has not a clue as to whether to location it is looking at is in the water or not.
Humans are so much better at that sort of thing than computers. Having said that it really should not be too difficult to define polygons for the
lands so the poor dumb computer can work it out for itself.
There, I feel better. That has been annoying me for a long time.
edit on 14/5/2012 by PuterMan because: To add clarity using inverted commas which prefer to spend their life upside down like Australians and
New Zealanders.