Earthquakes around the world

01.12.2018 - Powerful Earthquake rocks Indonesia's Tanimbar Islands - USGS
Powerful Earthquake Rocks Indonesia's Tanimbar Islands - USGS

A 6.5-magnitude earthquake has been registered Saturday in Indonesia's Tanimbar Islands, the US Geological Survey reported.

The centre of the tremor was located 279 kilometres (173 miles) west of Saumlaki in the Tanimbar Islands, the USGS specified.

No preliminary data has been provided so far regarding casualties or property damage.

Indonesia frequently suffers from earthquakes. On September 28 this year, a 7.5-magnitude earthquake reportedly struck Sulawesi in central Indonesia. The quake was followed by tsunami waves which were more than six metres high. The natural disaster resulted in the destruction of more than 70,000 homes, and some estimates put the death toll at nearly 2,000.
 

У нас в России по поводу землетрясения на Аляске написали совсем другое.

На Аляске произошло землетрясение магнитудой 7.2

Translation
We in Russia about the earthquake in Alaska get quite another.

In Alaska, an earthquake of magnitude 7.2
In Alaska in the United States there was a powerful earthquake. Within seven minutes there were several tremors. The magnitude of the strongest of them was 7.2. According to available information, the epicenter of the earthquake was 12 kilometers North of the largest city of Alaska anchorage, the hearth — at a depth of 35.5 kilometers.

Anchorage police reported damage to the city: "there is significant damage to infrastructure throughout anchorage. Many houses and buildings are damaged. Many streets and bridges are closed." The Governor of Alaska in the United States bill Walker declared a state of emergency, later it was announced by the President of the United States Donald trump.

Trump also responded to the earthquake on Twitter: he promised that the Federal government will not spare money to compensate for the damage to the victims: "I Appeal to the wonderful people of Alaska. On you strongly hit "one of big" (earthquakes - "Газета.Ru"). Please follow the instructions of highly qualified professionals who can help you. Your Federal government will spare no money! God bless you all! ",- trump wrote.
01.12.2018, 13:27
Фото: На Аляске произошло землетрясение магнитудой 7.2
 

We have similar situations that happen after a disaster too...

The stores that were open today were the most crowded I've ever seen. There was about 20 people in every line. It was worse than any Christmas Eve shopping day ever.

It was a weekend, and the 1st day of the month, so that accounts for a lot of the crowds, but the quake stirred up a lot of preparation style shopping. Not to mention - it's Christmas time. And the store shelves were noticably empty.

It was crazy! I went back after about 4 hours and the crowds cleared.

But news out of Alaska is treated like we are a distant, foreign land. And it is largely a non event because we are hearty and modern with our bldg codes and pioneer spirit.

And the timing of things is a factor... if we had a heavy snow year, it would be a catastrophy, or a very cold day - things would have froze very fast. But we had mild conditions, and very little snow.
 
Notice the strange way these earthquakes are handled by the media:
"Minor earthquakes -Southern Alaska" includes the 7.0 listed somewhat down the list, perhaps the journalist did not scroll down?!? The other Powerful Earthquake is a 6.8.

Strange how 6.8 can be powerful and 7.0 minor. I tried to find out what the rules for naming these quakes are. The National Geographic has:
Learn where earthquakes happen and how they're rated
Earthquake magnitude ratings and their impacts
Scientists assign a magnitude rating to earthquakes based on the strength and duration of their seismic waves. A quake measuring 3 to 4.9 is considered minor or light; 5 to 6.9 is moderate to strong; 7 to 7.9 is major; and 8 or more is great.
On average, a magnitude 8 quake strikes somewhere every year, and some 10,000 people die in earthquakes annually. Collapsing buildings claim by far the majority of lives, but the destruction is often compounded by mud slides, fires, floods, or tsunamis. Smaller temblors that usually occur in the days following a large earthquake can complicate rescue efforts and cause further death and destruction.
And here is more about the various scales: Moment magnitude scale - Wikipedia
The moment magnitude scale (MMS; denoted as Mw or M) is one of many seismic magnitude scales used to measure the size of earthquakes.[1]
The scale was developed in the 1970s to succeed the 1930s-era Richter magnitude scale (ML). Even though the formulas are different, the new scale retains a continuum of magnitude values similar to that defined by the older one. Under suitable assumptions, as with the Richter magnitude scale, an increase of one step on this logarithmic scale corresponds to a 10^(1.5) (about 32) times increase in the amount of energy released, and an increase of two steps corresponds to a 10^(3) (1,000) times increase in energy. Thus, an earthquake of Mw of 7.0 releases about 32 times as much energy as one of 6.0 and nearly 1,000 times that of 5.0.

The moment magnitude is based on the seismic moment of the earthquake, which is equal to the shear modulus of the rock near the fault multiplied by the average amount of slip on the fault and the size of the area that slipped.[2]

Since January 2002, the MMS has been the scale used by the United States Geological Survey to calculate and report magnitudes for all modern large earthquakes.[3]
Moment magnitude scale - Wikipedia
And then through a video I found the Modified Mercalli (MM) Intensity Scale
The Severity of an Earthquake
The effect of an earthquake on the Earth's surface is called the intensity. The intensity scale consists of a series of certain key responses such as people awakening, movement of furniture, damage to chimneys, and finally--total destruction. Although numerous intensity scales have been developed over the last several hundred years to evaluate the effects of earthquakes, the one currently used in the United States is the Modified Mercalli (MM) Intensity Scale. It was developed in 1931 by the American seismologists Harry Wood and Frank Neumann. This scale, composed of 12 increasing levels of intensity that range from imperceptible shaking to catastrophic destruction, is designated by Roman numerals. It does not have a mathematical basis; instead it is an arbitrary ranking based on observed effects.
The following is an abbreviated description of the 12 levels of Modified Mercalli intensity.

  1. Not felt except by a very few under especially favorable conditions.
  2. Felt only by a few persons at rest, especially on upper floors of buildings. Delicately suspended objects may swing.
  3. Felt quite noticeably by persons indoors, especially on upper floors of buildings. Many people do not recognize it as an earthquake. Standing motor cars may rock slightly. Vibration similar to the passing of a truck. Duration estimated.
  4. Felt indoors by many, outdoors by few during the day. At night, some awakened. Dishes, windows, doors disturbed; walls make cracking sound. Sensation like heavy truck striking building. Standing motor cars rocked noticeably.
  5. Felt by nearly everyone; many awakened. some dishes, windows broken. Unstable objects overturned. Pendulum clocks may stop.
  6. Felt by all, many frightened. Some heavy furniture moved; a few instances of fallen plaster. Damage slight.
  7. Damage negligible in buildings of good design and construction; slight to moderate in well-built ordinary structures; considerable damage in poorly built or badly designed structures; some chimneys broken.
  8. Damage slight in specially designed structures; considerable damage in ordinary substantial buildings with partial collapse. Damage great in poorly built structures. Fall of chmineys, factory stacks, columns, monuments, walls. Heavy furniture overturned.
  9. Damage considerable in specially designed structures; well-designed frame structures thrown out of plumb. Damage great in substantial buildings, with partial collapse. Buildings shifted off foundations.
  10. Some well-built wooden structures destroyed; most masonry and frame structures destroyed with foundations. Rail bent.
  11. Few, if any (masonry) structures remain standing. Bridges destroyed. Rails bent greatly.
  12. Damage total. Lines of sight and level are distorted. Objects thrown into the air.
Besides the above there is a formular for determining if an earthquake is significant:
Significant Earthquakes - 2018
What makes an earthquake "significant"?
Events in this list and shown in red on our real-time earthquake map and list are considered “significant events’, and they are determined by a combination of magnitude, number of Did You Feel It responses, and PAGER alert level.
Here is the equation:

mag_significance = magnitude * 100 * (magnitude / 6.5);
pager_significance = red is 2000 : orange is 1000 : yellow is 500 : green is 0;
dyfi_significance = min(num_responses, 1000) * max_cdi / 10;


significance = max(mag_significance, pager_significance) + dyfi_significance;

Any event with a significance > 600 is considered a significant event and appears on the list.
On List of earthquakes in 2018 - Wikipedia one can compare the earthquakes in different years

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Well, it could have well been just a mistake from the editor, but there were similar instances in that last couple of months/years that also left me wondering if there might be downplaying of some sort going on in general for some quakes.

Here is an example, although I forgot the details by now unfortunately. I'll try to summarize it as best as I can though. Not long ago, maybe a couple of weeks/months ago there was a fairly significant quake happening somewhere on the globe, while another one that was far less significant and destructive was happening around the same time. I remember how I listened to a mainstream radio channel on my way to work and finding myself confused how they covered this event. They somehow concenrated on the far less destructive one as though it was a big deal, while completely ignoring the big one. I was so taken aback by this, that I told some friends about it afterwards. It wasn't only covered like that in the radio but other mainstream outlets as well.

And this brings me to something else that I've wondered about the last couple of months too. Here in germany, two big fires broke out this year, in both of which I found the coverage and reporting rather strange, which raised my suspicion that there might be more behind those events than mentioned by the media.

Both events were covered widely in germany while in the first one they talked among other things how hard it is to take out the fire because quote "ammunition from WW2" was constantly exploding, which made it hard to calm it down. This event was near Berlin and was covered for weeks and I kept wondering about the seemingly strange way it was presented, since the media covered it as though it is something fairly common, that there are still woods in germany that are so widely covered with explosive stuff from WW2. In fact, it was the first time I ever heard of that.

Then the second one happened, which was widely covered by the german media as well for weeks. In this fire, the media told us, a moorland fire had been ignited by a german military fighter jet, that had dropped a bomb or something on the military drill field in which the fire was then started to rage. This fire was also very hard to calm down. So I wondered why I never heard of a moorland fire in germany before and why it is that the media presented it as though it is the most normal and common kind of fire here. I also wondered about the fact that it is a military drill ground in which explosives go of regularly for decades and how it is, that now all of a sudden, this place has started to burn? This event got so much traction and headlines that even the infamous german equivalent to Killary, the german Minister of Defence Ursula von der Leyen, was ordered to the place of the fire and started to apologize for what their troops/government have caused there with dropping this bomb.

So what if, I thought, there is a bit more going on in both cases and the media decided to blame it on human causes and present it as something commonly happening? Why did the media go to overdrive in those two fires, with fairly similar stories and behaviors of the fire?
Could it be that those fires were either caused by something like a fireball and/or were behaving in a manner that was something new to the authorities and kind of frightening? Therefore, creating a "plausible" story to make it look less frightening and not so much not under human control?

It might be worthwhile to look closer at this and similar happenings in the future and see if similar patterns emerge. All this could just be as the media reports it of course, just saying that it might as well be a protection mechanism from the PTB who are confronted with "new" kind of fires and earthqukes.
 
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We have had similar here in the UK this summer....New fire erupts in different area of UK's moorlands, second in recent days, smoke seen for miles -- Sott.net
Saddleworth Moor fire now being treated as arson along with other Lancashire blazes
Arson, bbqs etc but I wondered at the possibility of gas release from the ground? That and burning qualities of peat undug? I can't see that a few dry weeks would have an effect. Earthquake in Spurn, East Riding on 9th June...Earthquake hits Hull as people report houses shaking
 
And this brings me to something else that I've wondered about the last couple of months too. Here in germany, two big fires broke out this year ...
Around the same time there were incidents of fuel dumping in the media and my thoughts were that this is a pretty dirty thing and they certainly don't want this to be covered too much in the media because it's probably simply necessary in some circumstances.
 
or are they perhaps just electrical discharges from overhead cables or something?

An electrical discharge or any kind of lightsource on the ground that is bright enough for that matter could certainly cause this especially if it is cloudy and foggy. If you go out at night you can see light sources from the ground reflected in the clouds very regularly. However it could also be earthquake lightning which can be hard to distinguish.
 
We have had similar here in the UK this summer....New fire erupts in different area of UK's moorlands, second in recent days, smoke seen for miles -- Sott.net
Saddleworth Moor fire now being treated as arson along with other Lancashire blazes
Arson, bbqs etc but I wondered at the possibility of gas release from the ground? That and burning qualities of peat undug? I can't see that a few dry weeks would have an effect. Earthquake in Spurn, East Riding on 9th June...Earthquake hits Hull as people report houses shaking
Contrairy to public opinion, the earth can just start burning. Bog might have produced flammable CH4 in the layers, devoid of oxigen, could ignite by natural sparks, and picks up the flame easily. The earthquake guy dutchsinse, looks at GOES satelite infra-red sequences of eveningtime pictures to look for hotspots, and finds those around extinct vulcanoes under stress, leading to fires or quakes or worse. The Paradise-fire had those spots. Or some ¨natural gas¨ could just escape, like in a town, about 25 km N-E away from here, some inhabitants can just stick a pipe in the grond and collect gas, some even compress it and drive around on it.
 

Bizarre Earthquake Lights Finally Explained
[SIZE=4]https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/01/140106-earthquake-lights-earthquake-prediction-geology-science/PUBLISHED[/SIZE]
January 7, 2014
Snip:
Rare flashes of light that are sometimes seen around earthquakes are not caused by birds, or planes, or UFOs—all of which had been previously used to explain the phenomena known as earthquake lights.

Instead, the lights are caused by electrical properties of certain rocks in specific settings, report scientists in a new paper.

Sometimes called earthquake lightning, the lights can take "many different shapes, forms, and colors," says study coauthor Friedemann Freund, an adjunct professor of physics at San Jose State University and a senior researcher at NASA's Ames Research Center.

Freund says common forms of earthquake lights include bluish flames that appear to come out of the ground at ankle height; orbs of light called ball lightning that float in the air for tens of seconds or even minutes; and quick flashes of bright light that resemble regular lightning strikes, except they come out of the ground instead of the sky and can stretch up to 650 feet (200 meters).

Historic Sightings

Over the centuries, there have been many reports of earthquake lights, both before and while the ground is shaking.

Just seconds before the 2009 L'Aquila, Italy, earthquake, people saw four-inch (ten-centimeter) flames of light flickering above a stone street.

On November 12, 1988, people reported a bright purple-pink globe of light along the St. Lawrence River in Quebec, 11 days before a powerful quake.

People also reported seeing a faint rainbow of light before the great 1906 quake in San Francisco and lights before the devastating 1811-12 New Madrid earthquakes in Missouri.

Freund and colleagues studied such historic accounts going all the way back to the year 1600 and published their findings in Seismological Research Letters.

Flashback: :rolleyes:

Published on Aug 27, 2014
Napa Earthquake Napa California 6.0 Earthquake

 
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