Japan could be in Earthquake Trouble...Again

Your science is always sound, True American. In a way I want you to be right with your predictions, but will also dread it. This is a little reminiscent of 4 years ago. They had 7's a month before the big one. Nobody thought anything of the 7's.

New Madrid is definitely different. As far as I understand it, Its an earthquake prone area in a giant "sand pit." Some geologists think that its fading away into inactivity, but it still makes me nervous. If it does ever slip, big, its going to effect the entire eastern US because of the geology.

Checked this morning & there was another 6.
Three 6's in less than five days.

6.0
130km E of Miyako, Japan
2015-02-21 10:13:54 UTC
10.0 km

4.7
148km E of Miyako, Japan
2015-02-21 03:42:48 UTC
10.0 km

4.9
187km E of Yamada, Japan
2015-02-20 23:56:52 UTC
18.7 km

4.8
134km E of Miyako, Japan
2015-02-20 21:05:55 UTC
19.9 km

4.5
188km E of Yamada, Japan
2015-02-20 09:46:23 UTC
35.5 km

6.3
140km E of Miyako, Japan
2015-02-20 04:25:24 UTC
13.5 km

5.5
137km E of Miyako, Japan
2015-02-17 16:33:21 UTC
10.0 km

5.8
48km SE of Hachinohe, Japan
2015-02-17 04:46:38 UTC
40.4 km

4.9
96km E of Miyako, Japan
2015-02-17 02:29:51 UTC
20.3 km

4.6
85km E of Miyako, Japan
2015-02-17 01:15:02 UTC
10.0 km

4.7
108km ENE of Miyako, Japan
2015-02-17 00:50:02 UTC
9.0 km

6.7
83km ENE of Miyako, Japan
2015-02-16 23:06:27 UTC
23.0 km

Was going to post a link to JMA's list of quakes,
to see how many smaller ones they are having.
Can't find the one I wanted & my Quake file only has 10 things in it!!!
I've been robbed! I don't know what happened!!!
A quick search only turned up one listing & it wasn't any good!
I have to leave the house for awhile, I will look again later.
Maybe someone has the one I 'm looking for?

WOQ

After the March 2011 Japan earthquake/tsunami I started regularly checking the latest earthquakes in the world online. There are daily quakes off the coast of Honshu, Japan, usually around 5.8 and 5.9. Often they would get several quakes a day but the 6.7/6.9 one caught my attention. Now the quakes are happening at 6.0+.

It's something to keep your eye on, for sure. I hope it's not building up to something bad!

Here's the good ol' NEID maps Ustream channel for monitoring over there. The channel is offline at the moment, but it's worth having on hand to watch activity with.

As for the 1 mag rule, I'm not sure if it's anything official or not, but it does seem to have merit to it more times than not, in the most seismically active areas of the wold at least.

Japan has been through so much, my heart reaches out to those collectively affected. Im wishing another EQ, will not Come to be.

Japan needs a break Gaia! Just give it them!

originally posted by: ScientificRailgun
I was still teaching English here at the time and all the students were really freaked out.

Was it your unorthodox teaching style?

a reply to: wasobservingquietly

So with these smaller quakes does this kinda rule out a big quake? The OP has a very good grip on this topic and he said if the quakes are smaller it is a better sign?



With all the cleanup going on a big quake is the last thing they need.

a reply to: SubTruth

No, too many quakes of similar size could mean trouble coming. Typically people expect to see a larger quake followed by smaller aftershocks, rule is at least 1.0 smaller. Otherwise people tend to wonder, are we seeing prequakes to something bigger.

a reply to: cmdrkeenkid
a reply to: Rocker2013


TrueAmerican is referring to Bath's Law.

The other main law describing aftershocks is known as Båth's Law[5][6] and this states that the difference in magnitude between a main shock and its largest aftershock is approximately constant, independent of the main shock magnitude, typically 1.1–1.2 on the Moment magnitude scale.

Wiki

So if we see a mainshock of say Mag 7.0, but it is followed by an aftershock in the same rupture region, that is for example, a Mag 6.4, it is a cause for worry. The original Mag 7.0 may not be the mainshock; a larger earthquake could be coming.

I would thikn it'd be easy to get paranoid if looking too closely at this stuff. Nobody knows how the Earth works exactly yet. Nobody has a perfect earthquake forecast. And yet I'm glad some people are trying to figure it out. But I know if I were living over there I'd just wnat to stay busy and not get stuck in the fear. Power through the negativity.

a reply to: Olivine

Correct. I even take that extra .1 and .2 off and go down to a rounded 1 mag, to further limit false alarms. That means that if we were looking at this 6.7 and then we got say one 5.5 (and the rest lower), that would be a 1.2 mag differential. But in that case I don't deem it enough of a threat to start writing threads about it. I would just accept the 5.5 as the largest aftershock of the 6.7 and call it a day. I also don't apply this rule to anything under 6 mag, as it rarely leads to anything bigger.

But that's not what we are seeing here. Now we have three 6+'s, and a large rupture area. Your article there suggests that these may have nothing to do with the 9.0, and are possibly new quakes from the latest stress accumulations. It may very well be that in 4 years there has not been enough stress buildup to induce an 8+ in that area. And that's a good thing. With the previously locked zone finally unleashing that 9.0, maybe these quakes are occurring as regular stress relief maintenance, and there won't be a bigger one. Let's hope so.

a reply to: Olivine

Awesome! Thanks so much for the explanation. I know a great deal about physics, especially astrophysics, but not so much geophysics.

Ha, well despite our discussion, muzzy reported over in the quakewatch thread that:

"This quake is an aftershock of the 2011 quake that hit the Tohoku region," Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) seismologist Yasuhiro Yoshida told reporters.

Referring to the 6.7 I believe.

Is that right? Well sure, we could have all the way up to an 8.0 in that area and it could still be considered a belated aftershock of the 9.0. But hold on a minute. So all these smaller quakes all of a sudden just decide to appear out of nowhere as aftershocks of the 9.0 too, along with three 6+'s, 4 years later, all within a week? Uh huh. And I got some property in Acapulco I'll sell you too. Cheap.

And speaking of which, another 5.0 hit a bit ago and right about on one of my stars. So axe that star.

a reply to: TrueAmerican

An earthquake will be called an aftershock as long as the rate of earthquakes is higher than it was before the mainshock. For big earthquakes this might go on for decades.

So, they could be aftershocks.

Just wanted to tag this to follow it.

I have nothing to add other than a new 5.1 popped up i the same area.

a reply to: TrueAmerican

This is scary stuff. According to David Suzuki, if a 7.0+ quake were to hit the already crippled Fukushima plant, not only would Japan be destroyed by the fallout of a complete nuclear meltdown, (which arguably has already happened), but the entire West Coast of North America would have to be evacuated to escape the radioactive particles coming over the Pacific Ocean.

I'm sure this was already posted, but here's the video.

www.youtube.com...