[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index][Subject Index][Author Index]
Re: Quakes Shift Whole Island Of Sumatra...
David:
The initial reports said it was an 8.9 magnitude, but later reports have it
as a 9.0 (tieing a Russian quake [Kamchatka?] for the 4th strongest known
recorded earthquake). The scale is logarithmic which means that a 9 is 10
times more powerful than an 8. [But I really didn't need to tell you that -
that's just for our viewers :-) ].
As to the entire island of Sumarta moving 100 feet, the most recent report
from CNN/Reuters says:
"Scientists: Quake shifts islands
Nicobar and Simeulue farther out to sea
Tuesday, December 28, 2004 Posted: 10:28 PM EST (0328 GMT)
LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- The massive earthquake that
devastated parts of Asia permanently moved the tectonic plates beneath
the Indian Ocean as much as 98 feet (30 meters), slightly shifting islands
near Sumatra an unknown distance, U.S. scientists said on Tuesday.
A tsunami spawned by the 9.0-magnitude quake off the northern tip of
Sumatra killed an estimated 60,000 on Sunday in Indonesia, Thailand, India,
Malaysia, Sri Lanka and East Africa.
Satellite images showed that the movement of undersea plates off the
northern tip of Sumatra moved the Nicobar Islands and Simeulue Island out to
sea by an unknown distance, U.S. Geological Survey geophysicist Ken Hudnut
said.
Although the data showed that plates more than 12 miles (20 km) beneath
the ocean's surface moved dramatically, scientists will have to use handheld
satellite positioning systems at the sites to learn precisely how much the
land masses on the surface shifted, Hudnut said."
In addition, another report from CNN/Reuters says:
"Scientists: Quake may have made Earth wobble
Wednesday, December 29, 2004 Posted: 10:31 AM EST (1531 GMT)
LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- The deadly Asian earthquake may have
permanently accelerated the Earth's rotation -- shortening days by a
fraction of a second -- and caused the planet to wobble on its axis, U.S.
scientists said Tuesday.
Richard Gross, a geophysicist with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in
California, theorized that a shift of mass toward the Earth's center during
the quake Sunday caused the planet to spin 3 microseconds, or one millionth
of a second, faster and to tilt about an inch on its axis.
When one huge tectonic plate beneath the Indian Ocean was forced below the
edge of another "it had the effect of making the Earth more compact and
spinning faster," Gross said.
Gross said changes predicted by his model probably are too minuscule to be
detected by a global positioning satellite network that routinely measures
changes in Earth's spin, but said the data may reveal a slight wobble. "
As I write this, the current death tole is above 80,000, and I fully expect
the number to reach 125,000-135,000 - just from the tsunamis and
earthquake(s). The W.H.O. thinks the number who die from disease and other
related aftermaths will double the amount killed directly by the event.
As to my dinosaur reference - all this discussion of plate tectonics and
the disaster caused by the resultiing tsunamis is indicative of what might
have happened (at least locally) if a large enough bolide hit the earth at
the K-T.
BTW: I think _Dilong_ is the most important dinosaur discovery this year, as
well.
Allan Edels
From: David Marjanovic <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>
Reply-To: david.marjanovic@gmx.at
To: DML <dinosaur@usc.edu>
Subject: Re: Quakes Shift Whole Island Of Sumatra...
Date: Wed, 29 Dec 2004 15:39:58 +0100
The 9.0-magnitude quake struck 6 miles beneath the ocean
I thought it was 8.9 (isn't 9.0 about, like, half again as strong as 8.9?),
and I thought it was 25 km = 15.6 miles beneath the surface?
The quake shoved the entire
island of Sumatra about 100 feet to the southwest.
Incredible indeed. But it's the expected direction. Subduction in one huge
jump...
I wonder when we'll hear anything about Australia or Madagascar, let alone
the Nicobar and Andaman islands? And is the Malacca Strait shallow enough
to have stopped the wave before Singapore -- which is sort of at the end of
the funnel?
Oh, uh... dinosaurs. Dinosaurs! I agree that *Dilong* is the most
"important" discovery of the year. *Rugops* does deserve some mention for
being Africa's first named abelisaur, but that's it.