Earthquake Stuff

[MichaelNyby]

I'll purposely make that a really open sort of topic title so you folks in places that also get shook up from time-to-time can stick in news from your area.

Me, I'm in Japan and have been for a few decades and I am sure you folks know what happened to us on March 11th, 2011.

So I have been sort of keeping a closer eye on our jishin activity (jishin = earthquake) and this morning we had a cute one.

5.1 magnitude just off the coast of extreme western Fukui Prefecture and -- get this -- 360km deep.  Yep, that's 3 digits there!

And it registered on our little sensors over on the other side of Japan in Fukushima Prefecture and Ibaraki Prefecture.

I just did a bit of research and that area of Fukui doesn't seem to have had such a deep quake in a very long time, if ever.  Note "a bit" of research.  No time right now for more.

But that is a weird shake for us and that's saying something, because we get all kinds of weird shakes in this area of the world.

[Geek-9pm]

A number of earthquake web sires are available.
Japan:
http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/tag/earthquake/
USA:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/
Europe:
http://www.emsc-csem.org/#2
Asia:
http://earthquaketrack.com/v/asia/recent
Worldwide:
http://newsblogged.com/

Or just Google 'Earthquake News'

[MichaelNyby]

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to imply I needed links to sites to get information -- I have all sorts of links.  I was just posting some recent news on the sunject.  Have I erred in some way?  Such sorts of topics aren't allowed?

[Geek-9pm]

Nothings wrong. Say what you want. It is off topic.
I seldom feel earthquakes. I live in California.   
I asked my wife if we should move to Nebraska. She said no because they have tornadoes there.

[MichaelNyby]

Well, your wife is right about a tornado being a very unkind Mother Nature event.  I lived in Oklahoma back in the mid-70s and had the unfortunate experience of driving into Wichita Falls right after they had a really nasty tornado hit.

We used to drive into Texas to get a better beer to take back to Ft Sill where we were stationed.  Don't know about now, but used to be the beer in Oklahoma was so weak.  I think it was the same on the post/fort to conform to local laws, but was a long time ago and now I'm wondering about that.

Anyway, I've seen what a twister can do and it ain't nice.

Of course, earthquakes aren't so nice either, some of the times.  We have them so much over here, especially since March 11th, 2011,  that it's gotten to where I can pretty much judge the rough location by the feel of the shake.  Like that one we had recently that was very bad in Nagano Prefecture -- that one I knew right away was not in one of the usual areas and that it was a bad one.  And it sure was a bad one.  But I don't think we've had any deaths from it, if nobody has died of injuries.  But given how bad it was it really is amazing Mother Nature didn't claim any of us poor humans when She pulled that stunt on us.

Of course, if Mother Nature has Internet access and is reading this post I apologize to Her and will do/give/observe proper reflection on my bad manners as shown in my choice of vocabulary in this post, as in calling Her events stunts.  What a crude human I am.

[MichaelNyby]

True, this thread hasn't had any posts in a fair bit, but the topic is never out-of-date. We had a nasty shake on the west coast (Noto Peninsula) not so long ago and those poor folks are getting hit by a lot of aftershocks. Just had a normal shake this morning in a location that produces a shake about every month or so and the style of the shake is almost always easy to identify as that being the location without even checking JMA.

But that bad Noto Peninsula shake showed a very unusual wave pattern throughout the central Honshu area.

Oh yes, and there was that awful one in the Turkey/Syria area. And add to that the unnecessary loss of life due to somebody cheating on building code regulations - - - but that leads us into not-allowed territory on this site, I think. Just a note of that and won't go further. Well, unless one of the staff gives an okay to discuss that. Like I wonder if an average, as in not a structural engineer, - - - I wonder if an average resident of a building could see that some building isn't quite right? I seem to remember about ten or so years ago a whole building here in the Kanto area was not allowed to have anybody in it because the owner had it built incorrectly. Imagine that, a whole new building completely useless. I wonder how the authorities found out.

Anyway, shakes are the topic in this thread and this is a sort of up-to-date now. (Updated.) Now it is no longer so old, like me.

[MichaelNyby]

Now that is quite strange - - - the timing of the update of this thread. We just had a very unusual shake in the Kanto area that might have caused a bit of damage in a few areas and certainly woke up some people inside the main city areas of Tokyo. Especially if they were in a high rise building.

The center of the shake was on the coast area of Chiba. But it was a very odd shake. Sort of a sneaky one. Hard to explain. Wasn't even sure it was a shake in the first second or so. And over very fast. A very strange one, for sure. Hope all are okay where it registered a 5 on the Japanese scale. It was a 4 in many locations, which can also be a problem sometimes. Actually, I was heading for the door, which I don't do very often. But it was over rather quickly. Yep, very odd shake.

Truth is, that could be an aftershock of one of those on March 11th of 2011. I understand aftershocks of one of those on that day can go for many years. Yes, even decades. They will be checking all around Disneyland in Chiba right about now. Could have been a 5 there and they will be opening to the public in a few more hours.

[Geek-9pm]

I just now did a Google about earthquakes.
They now more frequent.
And they are less intense.

Why are we having so many earthquakes? Has naturally occurring earthquake activity been increasing? Does this mean a big one is going to hit? OR We haven't had any earthquakes in a long time; does this mean that the pressure is building up for a big one?

https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/why-are-we-having-so-many-earthquakes-has-naturally-occurring-earthquake-activity-been
The link above goes on the indicate that is is hard to know for sure. Earthquakes are no easy to predict. So I am not living California.  

[MichaelNyby]

Thank you for posting the link. Interesting.

A couple ideas from what they placed on that page:

Can animals predict earthquakes?
The earliest reference we have to unusual animal behavior prior to a significant earthquake is from Greece in 373 BC. Rats, weasels, snakes, and centipedes reportedly left their homes and headed for safety several days before a destructive earthquake. Anecdotal evidence abounds of animals, fish, birds, reptiles, and insects exhibiting strange behavior anywhere from weeks to seconds before an...

My cat in the ROK many years ago was agitated before a shake started. He was going around the room like he was trying to find an exit. If I recall correctly, he woke us up, so how long he'd been at that I don't know, but maybe a couple of minutes after I woke up and saw what he was doing the shake started. So I saw that and it seems there are other records of the same style happening. I suspect there is some wave thingy we haven't discovered yet that will be saving lives at some point in the future.

But I also know that most cats could care less before a shake starts. I've seen that, too. But Prolyx was an unusual feline. An incident we titled "the rooftop incident" was absolutely amazing. He was a Russian Blue given to us stateside by one of my TKD students.

And this one:

Can "MegaQuakes" really happen? Like a magnitude 10 or larger?

The USGS geo specialists might want to start that mega parameter at 10, but the one we had on Friday, March 11th in 2011 was mega enough for all who were directly affected by it. In fact, we are still paying a very, very high price for that one and it will be decades before we are in the clear at the Fukushima Daiichi facility.

But that wasn't the only price paid by humans. So many gone by that one. So many that lived that had lives shattered. Certainly "mega enough" for a whole bunch of folks.

I equate the Cold War years as being like living in a place where the Earth shakes a lot and sometimes in powerful ways. You know it can happen any time and there's nothing us average folks can do about it; so it is sort of there in your everyday life, but tucked away where it doesn't burden your brain so much.

[Geek-9pm]

There was some quakes in northern California. Nobody got hurt.
https://earthquaketrack.com/v/norcal/recent
My wife claims she felt them. 

[MichaelNyby]

I'm late with this. I wanted to ask about local government type stuff and got sidetracked elsewhere and didn't get back here. But some hours ago we had a very lengthy style of shake and it was right weird. In fact, it seems there have been an unusual number of shakes in Japan as of late and even the media folks are writing stuff about it. But that one a few hours ago now has me even more worried. It wasn't good the way it felt, but I was going to let that pass. But just now decided to look at JMA's page and that is showing a really weird pattern that I honestly don't think I have ever seen before.

I'm going to put a link here and hope it loads as is. It is so easy to see the pattern.

https://www.jma.go.jp/bosai/map.html#8/36.213/138.955/&elem=int&contents=earthquake_map&lang=en
EDIT: You have to click on the middle (blue) circle (of three) in the lower-right corner and then scroll down a couple to that yellow tagged entry that reads "5 Lower" and click on that to see that page. Seems this link only shows the latest shake. On the left you have to hit the plus sign twice to get that individual station reads and then you can get rid of all those information boxes move the image up a bit and that pattern then is easy to see.

And the question that came to mind maybe the day after that shake I posted about May 11th JST relates to that one. The very next day the government was already accepting reports on damage and requests for assistance. Let me get that link:

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20230512/k10014065271000.html

Uh oh, I messed up. I thought I got a copy from an English section, but not the link to that. Easy to see the button for the English on that Japanese page, I think. (Sorry, I forgot that NHK doesn't show an English version for many articles. I forgot that was NHK. I must have been doing my usual morning review of news when I saw that.)

I'll just place the whole English page here. It's not so long.

Kisarazu City, Chiba, with a seismic intensity of upper 5, starts accepting applications for "disaster certificate"
May 12, 2023 14:39

In Kisarazu City, Chiba Prefecture, where an earthquake with a seismic intensity of upper 5 was observed on the 11th, applications for a "disaster certificate" indicating damage have begun.

The reception started on the morning of the 12th at the Kisarazu City Hall station office building, and the people who visited wrote down the situation of the damage.

In Kisarazu City, where tremors with a seismic intensity of upper 5 were observed, housing damage such as roof tiles falling off occurred one after another, and the city is calling for applications.

A woman in her 40s who came to apply said, "The tiles on the roof of her house have fallen, and I'm worried that the next earthquake will cause it to collapse further."

Applications for a disaster certificate are accepted at Kisarazu City Hall station square office from 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on weekdays.

As you can see, they were ready the morning of the next day to handle such requests and I was wondering if you folks in the U.S. think your local governments would be about as fast as that.

That one was upper-5 on May 11th and the one tonight was up the coast of Chiba a bit and in more than one location measured lower-5. But that pattern I hope you can see on that JMA page --- that is super weird. Hate to write/think this, but now I kind of wished I had checked that JMA page after I had some sleep. Oh well, what happens happens. Can't chat with Mother Nature and ask for a break, no pun intended.

[Geek-9pm]

Look at this one:   

https://www.msn.com/en-za/news/world/frequent-earthquakes-in-noto-and-other-areas-have-revealed-that-the-next-big-earthquake-will-be-in-the-tokyo-metropolitan-area/ar-AA1bjkog

Frequent earthquakes in Noto and other areas have revealed that "the next big earthquake will be in the Tokyo metropolitan area
17 May