Confounding Sequence of Big Quakes Rattle Santa Cruz Islands

I did a couple of graphs yesterday showing the sequence of the Santa Cruz quakes, magnitude versus time
Did one for GFZ, USGS and RAS they are posted over at QW2013 pg37

Thought you might like the USGS one that I just updated now over here
the 2nd graph is a closeup of the red part of the 1st one.




BTW the watermark says "data from USGS" not "graph by USGS"

to be perfectly honest I think mine are far superior to the ones they have put out. I mean this is pathetic.

source:pdf from USGS

reply to post by muzzy


And your graph indicates exactly why I started the thread, and sounded the alarm:



Magnitudes too close, and violating the 1 to 1.5 mag "normal" rule of main shock to aftershock separation.

Had you pointed that out clearly, and made your own thread, well...

And right now, for the very same reason, I am still leery of what that fault might do in the next hours or days, because we are still at .9 magnitude separation, even by your own graph!

But average mags do seem to be dropping (like they always do after a big quake), so hopefully that trend will continue... Of course last time I said that we got slammed with an 8, so maybe I should hope for a bigger one and it won't happen...

Confounding Sequence of Big Quakes Rattle Santa Cruz Islands pg10

TrueAmerican post 1

www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread923000/pg10#pid15901172

On another note, anyone see any transform faults here?

neic.usgs.gov...

Ahh nope. Purple=subduction zone, green=transform fault, and ahh, I don't see no green. (At least not where others are reporting the northwestern side of that fault to be a transform fault, I don't.)

Just a note to the otherwise wise, making maps.

Olivine

www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread923000/pg10#pid15901871

TrueAmerican post 2

www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread923000/pg10#pid15902045

Quake Watch 2013 pg39

PuterMan

www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread911913/pg39#pid15902678

Thanks for the PDF link Olivine.

Pretty much confirms my subduction/transform graphic (thank goodness).

Reconcile yourselves, this is not a real dispute... all the points are true and you two reveal a pedagogical problem, not any personal position.

Most disseminated tectonic maps have uninterrupted triangle spikes of subduction.

Historical Seismicity have purple colour.

Only focused maps of the region have the transform.

Combining Olivine's new USGS pdf and slabs help to constrain the boundary zone.

It looks like they have not been more than 5 hours with at least a mag 4 quake since all this began, it must feel like they are living on jello.

reply to post by wujotvowujotvowujotvo


I was wondering if that had to do with a mapping and area focus issue myself.

Might I suggest, Mr. wujo, that seeing as you obviously are someone in the industry, that you go back and tell them that it drives people nuts. !

And your analysis of conversation flow in your posts does not hide to me your third person perspective of things that removes your own sentiment from your posts.

For example, why haven't you whipped out some facts and figures that show that in previous circumstances with other big quakes where there turned out to be foreshocks, that my basis for making this thread based upon the close magnitudes is unreliable and faulty- because in those instances a similar situation occurred or did not occur. I mean what, don't wanna make me look bad? Ha, I look bad here every day in one form or another, to someone or the other. I could give two hoots.

The bottom line is that yes, this anomaly occurred, and yes, I caught it, and yes, there was a big quake. And there could be another, based still in this methodology- cause the numbers are in front of you. But you lend no opinion, as do others who just sit back and say nothing about it.

Boring. Take me on. Let's go man, what are you waiting for. Show me it was a fluke. Cause to be honest, I really feel it was just a lucky guess myself. If there is nothing to it, then say so in your opinion. But all this beating around the bush and sitting back there as papa geophysicist, pouncing on conversation analysis is no fun. Tell me what you FEEL. Or don't you feel anything anymore, you're so buried in books?

I thought I was pretty emotionless, but damn, I swear, every single scientist I have come across in my wanderings makes me look pathetic in that department.

reply to post by TrueAmerican

Well, it's been quite a few hours and no answer from him. So you must have logiced them away. Said it before and will say it again, nice work on this thread.

reply to post by TrueAmerican


I agree with your interpretation of the foreshocks. I hadn't directly replied to that yet.

And not a geophysicist...

The Highlyallochthonous page that Westcoast linked to had an indicator -

I haven’t plotted them, but the focal mechanisms for the magnitude 6 events show thrust mechanisms very similar to the eventual main shock. In hindsight, we can interpret this as preliminary slip on the subduction thrust, prior to the main event. As ever, you should be aware that there was nothing about these earthquakes that told us this beforehand.

the orange suggest that the author didn't sit and check all foreshocks, because it wasn't all thrust movements.

He linked to a Feb 2 earthquake and looked at later foreshocks, but the early earthquakes of Jan 30 and Jan 31 show transform and normal movement.

So it had clues that was indicative of a possible future event, with full 3 main types of fault motion.

So, it's all over for sure now.

looks like it's heading for california now. new swarm awakened in california and another nevada swarm as well. if this keeps up, watch out cali a big one may be on the way. these earthquake swarms are definitely anomalous and seem to be putting off a bit of a chain reaction with other fault lines and plates.

Back at it again, with these being bunched further to the West:

5.0 166km W of Lata, Solomon Islands 2013-02-13 15:55:38 10.737°S 164.307°E 10.0
5.2 124km WSW of Lata, Solomon Islands 2013-02-13 12:50:30 11.041°S 164.747°E 9.8
5.2 133km W of Lata, Solomon Islands 2013-02-13 11:08:53 10.799°S 164.611°E 10.2
5.2 178km W of Lata, Solomon Islands 2013-02-13 10:08:49 10.733°S 164.199°E 10.1
5.3 179km W of Lata, Solomon Islands 2013-02-12 23:32:36 11.003°S 164.217°E 15.0

I am guessing you have all seen this thread....

www.abovetopsecret.com...

I was thinking sink hole, but this could be worse and makes more sense I guess...


volcano from H E double hockey sticks.....

Originally posted by mellisamouse
I am guessing you have all seen this thread....

www.abovetopsecret.com...

I was thinking sink hole, but this could be worse and makes more sense I guess...


volcano from H E double hockey sticks.....

There is an ancient Australian prophecy about two hockey sticks. It has to do with a walkabout, a priest, a rabbi, and...oh, never mind.

Came across the following report on the Extinction Protocol website.

New quake south of Fiji, 6.1 and elatively shallow at 34km's depth.....

This look like being on the same edge of the ring of fire just further south.

[url]http://theextinctionprotocol.wordpress.com/2013/02/18/6-1-magnitude-earthquake-strikes-kermadec-islands/[/rul]

are we seeing the stresses spreading further south along the same fault lines thus being related or a totally seperate quake?

reply to post by Melbourne_Militia


Well interesting you should ask, because with the activity showing up the last thirty days from today, I am starting to wonder if Samoa/Tonga may be ramping up to a bigger one myself:



Those could potentially be foreshocks, as a similar situation is occurring as occurred with the Santa Cruz islands (top left cluster in that pic)- and which caused me to start this thread.

The only difference here though is the magnitudes aren't as great in the Samoa/Tonga cluster- and that's why I really haven't pursued it. But you can bet I am keeping an eye on it. We start getting high 5's and 6's there in rapid sequence, and I'll be starting another thread most likely.

As as a side note, the station in Samoa has been down for quite a few weeks now. Hoping they fix it- without it we are stuck to using teleseismic waveforms from Vanuato and/New Calcedonia/and Solomon Islands. There might be one in Fiji, but I think that one's been down forever. Haven't checked recently- kind of gave up long ago on that station.

Hmm, looks like our little spot here is acting up again, with the following shallow quakes happening in a pretty short period of time:

5.5 137km SW of Lata, Solomon Islands 2013-02-23 14:31:04 11.712°S 165.077°E 12.6
5.9 55km W of Lata, Solomon Islands 2013-02-23 08:59:08 10.630°S 165.329°E 10.7
5.2 44km SSW of Lata, Solomon Islands 2013-02-22 22:22:05 11.098°S 165.703°E 15.0

All this after it appeared to calm for a while, and I 'm seeing more smaller ones come in as I type- it's clearly moving again. Emsc has that 5.9 as a 6.0...And that happened about 27 km from the main shock 8.0 epicenter. Kind of surprising there was still that much energy left that close, after the 8.0 release.

Nothing super alarming here yet, unless as I said before, a 7.3+ were to show up. But did want to update the thread.

Here's what the SANVU webi looks like:
www.iris.edu...