Because there has not been enough human misery lately, there was an 8.8 earthquake in Chile, and it looks like a disaster movie. There are tsunami warnings to be sounded as far away as Hawaii.
Keep your fingers crossed.
This post is in: Open Threads
Because there has not been enough human misery lately, there was an 8.8 earthquake in Chile, and it looks like a disaster movie. There are tsunami warnings to be sounded as far away as Hawaii.
Keep your fingers crossed.
Comments are closed.
[…] at Balloon Juice want to know what Pat Robertson will say angered God this time. My guess, either it’s not speaking Jesus’s native tongue […]
me
There are tsunami warnings in japan, almost halfway around the world.
celticdragonchick
Plate tectonics are bitch, in that respect. One of the more interesting things about Chilean earthquakes is coastal rebound. Friction from the subducted oceanic plate (the Nazca Plate, in this case) actually drags the edge of the South American Plate downward several feet. After the 1960 earthquake, the coast of Chile actually rose several feet over about ten years.
Steve
When will Pat Robertson chime in? Why is god punishing Chile?
electricgrendel
There is a tsunami warning for the entire Pacific except for the American West Coast, apparently. I haven’t seen any pictures out of Chile, but I suspect that the building codes in this area of Chile are meant to accomodate earthquakes. This area endured a 9.5 in the 60’s, so I can guess that most of the structures in the area were built since the 60’s.
Michael D.
Thats 750-800 times as strong as in Haiti by the way. Which tells you two things (at least)
1. This was a fucking strong quake.
2. The devastation will be large, but not as much as in Haiti – which really gives you some idea how shitty it is in Haiti – that an earthquake 750-800 times LESS strong does so much more damage.
I patiently await hearing from Pat Robertson for the explanation.
Michael D.
This is one of the TOP TEN strongest quakes in recorded history. Wow!
celticdragonchick
@Michael D.:
Yep. Good info on Wikipedia for anybody who wants to understand how the Richter Magnitude Scale works.
The Richter magnitude scale, also known as the local magnitude (ML) scale, assigns a single number to quantify the amount of seismic energy released by an earthquake. It is a base-10 logarithmic scale obtained by calculating the logarithm of the combined horizontal amplitude of the largest displacement from zero on a Wood–Anderson torsion seismometer output. So, for example, an earthquake that measures 5.0 on the Richter scale has a shaking amplitude 10 times larger than one that measures 4.0.
Rey
Geez, between this, the clusterfuck that is the USA, not to mention the crap that is going on in my city- I just want to hug a bong and drink vodka until I croak.
Trinity
@Michael D.: Wow indeed!
Woodbuster
They will be evacuating the coastlines in Hawaii at 6:00 local – including Waikiki. Can you imagine what a clusterfuck THAT is going to be? All those sunburned tourists from Iowa and Minnesota running around in their new tropical shirts trying to figure out where the fuck to run to, and how?
And, could CNN’s Chad Myers explain to me why he believes in earthquakes and all that science stuff, but doesn’t believe in global warming? Hmmm?
Mary G
We have a tsunami advisory here in So. Cal. It’s estimated to hit where I live around 12:15 pm PST, and hordes of idiots will be standing on the beach waiting to see it. My folks woke me up to go see the one in 1960 (from the top of the cliffs). I was most disappointed when it didn’t show up.
celticdragonchick
@Woodbuster:
All the beaches had better be clear, including those directly away from the wave direction on the far side of the islands. Tsunamis have a nasty habit of wrapping around an island (because of drag) and smashing the hell out of the far side where everybody assumes they are safe. Anywhere near the water is not safe!
demkat620
MSNBC is saying there is definitely a tsunamai thye just don’t know how bad yet.
Exactly right John, like we didn’t have enough problems already.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@electricgrendel:
No, they didn’t leave us out:
We might see a foot surge here (South Oregon coast at the California border) but I would guess that is about it. That was one hell of a powerful quake though.
celticdragonchick
@demkat620:
It’s all part of living on a geologically active planet. Geologically dead planets tend to end up like Mars, which would be a bit of a drag for us and pretty much every other living thing.
beltane
@Steve: Chile just elected a conservative government. Pat Robertson will have to change his rationale for this one.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Woodbuster: God causes earthquakes. Man could never cause something like climate change, because then it would lead to bestiality and pedophilia.
demkat620
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): Personally, I think its Godzilla moving around under there. But that’s probably just me.
Cris
Won’t someone think of the penguins?
Michael D.
A tsunami has already hit Robinson Crusoe Island.
Or, as CNN just reported, Robinson Caruso Island.
SGEW
I suppose it says something about my frame of mind that I saw the BBC headline this morning and said “Oh, phew, less than a hundred people dead, thank goodness.” Massive infrastructure damage, scores of irreplaceable lives lost, thousands of individual lives shattered, and my first thought is “dodged a bullet.” This may not be the best way to react, methinks.
To tell the truth, I don’t think I’ve gotten over the 2005 tsunami. And Haiti just wrecked me. Wrecked me.
In any event, I’m definitely keeping my fingers crossed. Good thing that the Chilean government seems to have a good grip on disaster preparedness.
aimai
This has a Day the Earth Stood Still feel to it, waiting for an onrushing disaster. We already had one wake up call with the Tsunami a few years ago, then the Haitian Earthquake–and yet we never seem to get the message that we’d better be beating our swords into plowshares and have a huge surplus waiting to help those who are devastated in these events.
aimai
Leelee for Obama
Is anyone here able to tell us whether earthquake activity is akin to volcanic activity? It would seem that it should be, yes? I ask because one theory about increased volcanic activity I have heard points toward Mother Earth lowering her temperature by filling the atmosphere with dust, etc. to block the sun. Little Ice Age anyone?
This Chilean quake was much farther underground than the Haiti quake, wasn’t it? That likely blunted some of the damage, even though the scale was much higher.
Any corrections are welcome, I’m not a geologist, obviously. Just an amateur/interested soul.
BR
Yup, earthquakes can be related to/trigger volcanic activity. They can also trigger other earthquakes, even at great distances.
Also, a new finding is that massive glacier melts can trigger earthquakes because the enormous weight of the glacier shifts from what used to be a stable position.
evinfuilt
@Michael D.:
Seeing that number just made my eyes freak out. But fortunately the magnitude of the quake is rarely a sign on the damage caused. Its all about where people lived and what type of ground they lived on.
For Haiti the quake was right at the populous area, with poor building structures and most importantly ground that tranfered the energy right into the buildings. Chili being very mountainous (and not soft muddy hills like Mexico) will stop the energy from transferring as far, and should protect a lot of cities. Still anyone near it will take a massive beating, and of course there are a lot of poorly built structures there, it may not have the levels of poverty in Haiti, but there are plenty of high poverty areas.
Still, a jaw dropping huge quake and I hope we can get help down there for those that need it.
r€nato
@Steve:
LOL that only took 3 comments.
Maybe Robertson will say God is punishing them for being idol-worshipping Papists.
Bruuuuce
And, of course, this overshadows the 6.9 magnitude quake in Okinawa that struck a bit earlier. Tsunami warnings were initially issued there, too, but rescinded later.
My first donation, as always was to Medicins Sans Frontieres; we’ll see just how much more is needed when the reports come in from Concepcion, where the phone lines are reportedly still out.
PurpleGirl
@evinfuilt: Another factor is the depth of the quake itself. Haiti’s quake was closer to the surface than the Chilean quake apparently was. Deeper in the earth means more earth for the energy to move through until it hits the surface.
J.
My brother-in-law, his stepson, and the stepson’s fiancee are all in Chile, in Valparaiso. Got word that everyone’s okay, just a little shaken up. And have a friend who is heading to Hawaii on a family vacation this morning. She called the hotel and the hotel staff told her to come – that is if she can make it out of New York, where the airports are still backed up. All I can say is the snow suddenly doesn’t seem so bad.
Emma
Spanish language television is reporting widespread destruction but only 82 confirmed deaths so far. Someone said that Chile has a good building code as they expect to be hit from time to time.
Robin G
@BR:
That’s fascinating. So does that mean it’s possible that the Haiti quake could’ve shaken things up just enough to nudge things into instability near Chile? Or not? Or could they both have been caused by some underlying instability? It just seems odd to me to have two such large earthquakes so (relatively) close together in time and space. That’s entirely from a layperson’s standpoint, I admit — I know less than nothing about geology.
And the glacier thing… that makes sense. Terrible, terrible sense.
Svensker
@Robin G:
Google “Pacific ring of fire”
jeffreyw
@Leelee for Obama: I don’t think that any theory that hinges on “Mother Nature” having agency can be creditable, as entertaining as they may otherwise be.
Robin G
@Bruuuuce: Okay, wait, there was a earthquake an hour earlier in Okinawa? Could there have been a connection there?
That’s it, I’m signing up for a geology class.
geg6
BR @24: That stuff about glaciers is fascinating. Mainly because I read just last evening about two huge glaciers breaking off just the other day in Antarctica. I mean really huge ones, so big that scientists were a little freaked out about it. Can’t remember where I read it, but Salon sticks in my mind. Is it possible that they may have caused this or even been a harbinger of this? I don’t know geology well at all, but wow.
Michael D.
Mother Nature doesn’t DO things.
Mother Nature IS things.
Leelee for Obama
@jeffreyw: Not in an animated sense, of course. But the theory is that nature senses danger to its continued existence and natural occurrences address the problems. As in, Nature Bats Last.
If Mother Nature actually existed, we’d all be in our rooms, if nothing worse.
demkat620
From listening to MSNBC, this doesn’t sound good for the Pacific Islands does it?
scav
Okinawa was yesterday 2010 February 26 20:31:27 UTC
Chile was 2010 February 27 06:34:14 UTC for comparison.
if you don’t know of it, http://earthquake.usgs.gov/ is a fun place to get details.
Robin G
@Svensker: Interesting stuff. So Haiti isn’t on the same fault line. Hmm. (I just asked my husband if he’d heard of the Ring of Fire, and he chided me for not seeing the IMAX movie when I was a kid. Hrmph.)
AhabTRuler
@Leelee for Obama: Ah, but climate change is a problem for humans and other organisms, but not so much of a threat to the planet, per se. If we kill ourselves off, Mom will just keep on chugging.
West of the Cascades
I was in a 7.9 earthquake in northern Chile in 2005, just before Katrina — what it made me realize was that Chile is better prepared for earthquakes than the US was for a hurricane. The Chilean military was in the air by daybreak, dropping supplies to villages in the mountains isolated by roads being destroyed, construction there has long emphasized seismic sturdiness, and a good emergency communication system. The US could learn a thing or two from our cousins on the west side of the Andes.
Bill H
@BR: Earthquakes triggering other earthquakes is documented but not all that well understood, at least not as to a direct triggering action. One quake on a fault line increases stress on the part of the fault line that did not slip and makes a quake more likely. Scientific thought is that a quake on one fault line would not be related to a or caused by quake on a different fault line.
I don’t believe there is any common scientific sense that earthquakes trigger or activate volcanos. They occur in conjunction with volcanos as the magma rises toward the surface, but are pretty small and mostly only detectable with instruments.
The “Ring of Fire” aroung the Pacific contains both volcanos and earthquake zones due to plate movement. Volcanos in these areas are the result of one plate being pushed beneath another, causing it to melt. The melted portion of the subducted plate rises through the upper one, erupting as volcanos. Other volcanos rise where plates are splitting apart, and yet others through “hot spots” in the crust which occur for unknown reasons.
jeffreyw
@Leelee for Obama: I can see feedback loops and the like, but I will not believe that nature “senses” anything. This is Pat Robertson territory.
Cat Lady
@scav:
Other than this place, the USGS earthquake maps are the other place I spend a lot of time. The area around the Salton Sea shakes all the time, and I’m keeping my eye on the Yellowstone Caldera. If that sucker blows, good night Irene. We will all be Mayans then.
Debbie(aussie)
We have been issued a tsunami warming for the sth Queensland and nth & central New South Wales Coast of Aus for times after 8am local. Way over on the other side of the Pacific from Chile. Amazing things quakes. HOpe the people of Chile aren’t suffering too much
John O
Nature seeks balance, I’ve always felt. Not consciously, though. It’s just how it works. Nature Is or whatnot.
That, and there isn’t anything that can be done about it, honestly. As for climate change, I would prefer we (largely) prepare for it in terms of resources allocated instead of trying to prevent it. Like IOZ, I don’t see how reducing our emissions to 80’s levels is going to make much difference to Ma Nature.
Am I the only one who finds myself becoming more fatalistic as I age?
SGEW
@John O:
I think that this is what is known as “the human condition.”
mainsailset
The last big earthquake in Chile triggered the massive tsunami that TOOK out Hilo, Hawaii in the ’50’s. The count for aftershocks so far stands at 30 in a little over 6 hours and they range from a substantial 5.2 to a whopping 6.9!
The Antartic is now on thew tsunami watch list, all the way across the Pacific into New Zealand and then up into Russia and back down the entire coast of US & Mexico. Some of the wave heights on the warning go as high as 7.7′, with most down in the 1-2′ range which are still pretty substantial.
Chile is devastated but if these tsunamis have their way there’s alot more damage yet to come.
scav
and for people who want to go visit the iceburg info, the beeb’s isn’t bad. a few cute photos Here. Don’t get too too freaked by the weight figures, I think most of these are pretty much floating already, the question is are they attached and stable for the coastline (and coastline dynamics it would seem in these case).
There. Ice and Fire (well, ring of). And Cat Lady is offering us Mayan Cocoa.
inkadu
CNN just now: “Earthquakes don’t kill people; buildings kill people.”
Good to see the second amendment dragged into this.
Leelee for Obama
@jeffreyw: I’m not blaming nature or attributing some kind of power over us to an animate construct like “Mother Nature”-All I’m asking is whether the natural world produces occurrences that address natural problems. We have not addressed the climate changing ability of global warming substantively, the planet has warmed before, and the temperature of said planet was cooled by volcanic activity. Nature addressed a problem. The planet doesn’t need us, so we are expendable. We may even be sensed as a viral infection (Kurt Vonnegut). I see no reason for you to compare me to that fruitcake, Robertson. It’s kind of insulting.
No, you’re not. I don’t like it, but there it is.
John O
@SGEW:
I suppose so. It strikes me hard at times like these, though. Makes me want to go all Galty.
(I believe the media is hyping the tsunami threat out of self-interest, and the various agencies are hyping it out of CYA.)
Bobzim
Get ready to start hearing more of this:
7And they asked him, saying, Master, but when shall these things be? and what sign will there be when these things shall come to pass?
8And he said, Take heed that ye be not deceived: for many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and the time draweth near: go ye not therefore after them.
9But when ye shall hear of wars and commotions, be not terrified: for these things must first come to pass; but the end is not by and by.
10Then said he unto them, Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom:
11And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.
Ana Gama
@Robin G:
Oh, do that for sure! When I needed one more science class with a lab section to graduate, I picked geology mostly on a whim. But, as it turned out, it was really fascinating, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Matt Mercer
Is the TV show, Amazing Race, still being filmed in Chile? It was, as of last week.
valdivia
I have been talking to my friends in Chile and all agree that the govt has this in hand very efficiently and though some infrastructure collapse can be seen all over Santiago that overall it fared well given the strength of the quake. The rural areas, with less modern infrastructure are faring less well.
drunken hausfrau
Pat Robertson will claim it is the fault of the Chileans having a WOMAN President… even though she is soon to be Madame Ex-President. I am betting my evening martini on the curse of Eve as the reason for the terrible earthquake and tsunami to follow. Also, Hawaii will get hit hard because they have state sponsored healthcare and they are the home state of that black muslim usurper Obama.
valdivia
OT–Salomon has this excellent blog post about how much the WSJ is changing its reporting to fit the Murdoch world view. So, boys and girls do not trust the WSJ news pages anymore.
valdivia
@drunken hausfrau:
well she is divorced so that explains it no?
TheWatcher
Waiting in the dark for the first sirens to sound now. Hawaii waits….
This is reality….
TheWatcher
And now they sound….mournful, off in the distant. Even knowing they were coming, its still makes your heart jump.
TheWatcher
Run or stay? Even if your not in an evac zone, the question remains….
scav
Of course they’re hyping things on the news, hasn’t everyone noticed that we can’t get 3 inches of snow anymore even in bleeding Chicago without the TV telling us to stock up on staples and put emergency supplies in our cars? There are 24 hours of air-time to fill! Early reports out of Haiti indicated that 100s had died, so I doubt we can say much about how easily Chile got off (though I’m not expecting things to be quite as bad as Haiti). We won’t know what alls happened for a while and they will be a lot of dubious people going apeshit in their own best interest around us. Standard Operating Procedure.
JenJen
@inkadu: I’m pretty sure earthquakes are unconstitutional.
TheWatcher
5 hours to go….nothing to do but have some cereal…
me
Sounds like, #puts on sunglasses# they’re all wet. (boooo)
jeffreyw
@Leelee for Obama: I think part of the problem we have is that the language does not work very well in addressing notion like intentionality. It is easy in casual conversation to attribute “purpose” to events that have none: “The volcanoes spew ash to cool down a world that is too hot” and etc.
I was comparing an idea to an idea and find that they are alike in attributing agency to a non human entity. I was not comparing you to anyone.
SGEW
@TheWatcher:
Scary stuff. Here’s hoping that y’all get through this without any harm.
A lot of my family lives Hilo side, so I’m a little nervous for them . . . keep us updated, if you can.
Zuzu's Petals
@TheWatcher:
Which island are you on?
My sister called from Kauai at 5:30 am her time. They live upland so are not evacuating. Have plenty of supplies stashed (years of storm warnings, etc.) and will be okay; her son in Honolulu also lives upland so assuming he’s also okay.
Ash Can
@TheWatcher: I read on MSNBC’s website that Hawaii was going to sound its sirens at 6AM (Hawaii time), and then again three hours before estimated impact (wave impact estimated for 11:19AM).
I’ll take my snowy, freezing cold Midwest and its paltry 4.3 quakes any day of the week.
me
My sister in law lives here. Hopefully the tsunami isn’t too large.
TheWatcher
Oahu, Kaneohe, 96744, twenty feet from the water.
Luckily on the bay side.
The theoritical becomes the pratical.
And yes, the Big Island will probably be Ground Zero, as is the norm for Chilean spawned tsunami.
I was just there on Thursday.
Leelee for Obama
@jeffreyw: OK, Maybe I’m a bit sensitive, but it sure felt like a comparison.
I think I’m of the notion that nature does react to problems, even if “sensing” is the wrong word.
evinfuilt
@TheWatcher:
Good luck. but no side is safe with a Tsunami. The waves force wraps around the entire island. Hopefully the rise will be small, but I’m sure you know to take it safe and head upwards and inland. Watch what things are like up in Mexico right now, will give a good hint on water height.
Be Safe, stay informed.
Zuzu's Petals
@Woodbuster:
I read that the Waikiki hotels will just be moving people to the higher floors rather than evacuating…too much of a chance of gridlock otherwise.
Ash Can
@TheWatcher:
That sounds too close for comfort. Should you get moving?
CaseyL
What a thing to wake up to. The tsunami warning seems to be covering a larger area the longer I tune in, but so far it hasn’t been extended to Washington.
I’m glad to hear BJers friends and families are OK, and humbled to hear how good the Chilean government’s disaster response is.
Watcher, that report on the tsunami warning is… eerie. The news I heard is that the warning is for 10-15 foot waves; and that, no, it isn’t the same as a really good surf, for chrissakes. (I wonder, though, hos many surfers will be out there, waiting.)
Wishing good luck to everyone in the earthquake and tsunami zones…
ETA: I’m in moderation, and I have no idea why.
Zuzu's Petals
@TheWatcher:
Sounds lovely, except for right now. Glad you have plenty of time to prepare (even on the bay side).
RedKitten
And, not to be a pessimist or a cynic, but if Hawaii DOES get whomped, and the federal government offers aid, how much do you want to bet that you’ll hear:
1. The mean right-wingers saying that Obama is funneling all this money to his home state even though it’s not really needed (in their opinion).
2. The more stupid of the right-wingers whining about Obama sending money to a foreign country.
Brachiator
Some of the photos of the damage are astounding. Cars tumbled like toys.
TheWatcher
It’s not the tsunami you know is coming that gets you. It’s the one you don’t know about that will. A locally spawned Hawaii tsunami would have a lead time of 5 to ten minutes.
Aloha O’e.
Max
@scav: Living in the Bay Area, I’ve got that site bookmarked.
This planet sure has been angry lately.
geg6
What’s the news in Okinawa? I have a couple of good friends there who teach at the American school. I hope they are okay. Good people, Sam and Sue. Very good people.
TheWatcher
Been up since 430A when the phone started ringing. Going to try and sleep now. We are cautiously optimistic it wont be very bad. We hope.
1119A it arrives. 1120A will be the next update on this thread.
CaseyL
Here’s a terrific map showing how much time it takes for the tsunami to get to various spots:
Jim Once
@Ash Can:
Re the relative safety of the Midwest: New Madrid fault/earthquake, anyone?
From Wikipedia, describing the New Madrid earthquake of 1812, estimated Richter of 8.
JenJen
The weather guy on CNN is humming the Hawaii 5-0 theme song. And yeah, this is the same guy who famously lost his shit during Hurricane Katrina.
Ash Can
@RedKitten: That’s not a bet, that’s a statement of fact. And we’re also going to have comparisons of time, in minutes, of how long it took Obama to respond to the Hawaii tsunami vs. how long it took him to respond to the original disaster in Chile. Shoot me now.
Like John said in that other thread, these people are simply hideous. Their behavior and reactions are as predictable as the sun rising and setting.
jeffreyw
@Leelee for Obama:
People have problems. Earthquakes and volcanoes cause problems for people, climate changes pose additional kinds of problems–for people. The earth abides.
And I am truly sorry for using the Robertson analogy, he has been in the news, and a previous comment reminded me anew. It was shorthand for supernatural thinking, nothing more.
glasgowtremontaine
@CaseyL: My guess as to why you were in moderation: you meant to write “how many surfers”, but instead painted a more vivid image.
me
Here’s another neat map showing the estimated wave heights throughout the Pacific.
trollhattan
Jeez. I’ve driven on tsunami evacuation routes in two places: Hilo and Crescent City, California. I didn’t think very much about them at the time, other than as historical artifacts. Today however, some planning seems like a very good investment.
As noted, 8.8 is a monster quake. We felt the 9.2 Anchorage quake in ’64 all the way in Seattle, when I was but a wee lad–IIRC it was the second strongest of the 20th century, exceeded only by the ’46 Chilean disaster.
Best wishes for everyone already affected and yet to be.
scav
Leelee, I think part of the problem is also that from the “point of view”of the system, increased temperature isn’t a problem. The death of every living thing, let alone our noble biped selves isn’t a problem. The very existence of the universe or not isn’t a problem. Things happen. Shit happens. There may be positive feedback. There may be negative feedback. The temporarily ensuing situation may or may not resemble what happened before. Homeostasis is until it isn’t.
And re the safety of the Midwest. People tend to discount the number of people who die because of the whole temperature extreme things (heat and cold) that drip drip drip year in and year and go nuts about the rare intense events (earthquakes!!). It’s the whole death by car crash v. death by plane crash mental wiggle.
CaseyL
@glasgowtremontaine:
Oh, lord, I didn’t see that. Made me laugh like crazy.
And apologies, y’all for the non-visible terrific tsunami map. I couldn’t get the link tool to work, and then couldn’t delete the comment.
I need coffee…
leinie
Mr. L has an iPhone app that gets him the public radio station from Honolulu. It’s really interesting to hear this, cuz the guy is just kinda talking, and he isn’t hysterical and he isn’t foaming at the mouth. I asked Mr L if it was Mr. Rogers, cuz he’s got that kind of calm, soothing voice.
“If you’re in a coastal area, call your auntie up country and tell her your coming for a visit because there’s a tsunami on the way.
The stores will be crazy, but don’t stock up if you don’t need to cuz that might mean someone who DOES need to won’t get something.”
Ash Can
@Jim Once: Yep, I’ll take that too.
Jim Once
@Ash Can:
Interesting. Thanks for sharing that.
Brick Oven Bill
Robin G States:
“And the glacier thing… that makes sense. Terrible, terrible sense.”
Let us now consider the theory that the earthquake was caused by melting glaciers. Despite the fact that ice in the Southern Hemisphere is reportedly growing, let us assume it is shrinking, and that the depth of ice has decreased by two feet.
Consider our entering assumptions:
Epicenter depth: 21.75 miles (114,576 feet)
Weight of rock: 150 pounds per cubic foot
Weight of ice: 56.8 pounds per cubic foot
Apply mathematics!
Gravitational force from rock holding the tectonic plates in place:
114, 576 feet * 150 lbm/ft^3 = 1,718,400 pounds per square foot
Gravitational force given up by melting ice which probably isn’t melting:
2 feet * 56.8 lbm/ft^3 = 114 pounds per square foot
Divide: 114 / 1,718,400 = 0.0000663; or 0.0066%
So in the theoretical case that 2 feet of ice has melted, which it probably hasn’t, 99.9934% of the gravitational force holding the tectonic plates together is still there.
So it likely has to be something else. I believe that the God of Refreshment could be responsible. This God, recognizing that Chile makes excellent wine, blessed it with good building codes. But the God of Refreshment is very angry with Haiti, as they either make no beverages, or very bad beverages, and damned the Haitians to bad building codes and non-existent code enforcement. Probably no codes at all!
Thoughts with the people of both places; be the responsible power be either Global Warming, the God of Refreshment, or perhaps some other mystical force. It might just be the earth.
JenJen
@leinie: I’m listening to KHNR live from Honolulu and it’s fascinating. Click here, and then again on “listen”:
http://radiotime.com/station/s_31388/KHNR_690.aspx
(by the way, KHNR is Honolulu’s Wingnut Radio station, but it’s very useful today for live news.)
CaseyL
Here’s a different tsunami time map, and rather than hope to use the link tool properly (since I don’t know what went wrong last time) I’m just gonna post the URL:
http://mappery.com/Tsunami-Time-Travel-to-Chile-Map
This map, BTW, was posted about a year ago. Someone was sure studying up on their plate techtonics!
trollhattan
Oops, I confused the ’46 Aleutian and ’60 Chilean quakes. Lack of sufficient caffeine units following earlier excessive zinfandel units is my only excuse.
nancydarling
My kids are in the Galapagos Islands on a dive trip. They were leaving Thursday night on a boat cruise of the islands. I have not heard from them yet. I think where they were going did not have internet access. My last email was Feb. 23. If any one hears from that area, can you post here?
peach flavored shampoo
“Chiliean Earthquake” sounds like my digestive system’s response to eating chili.
Brick Oven Bill
Correction:
114, 576 feet * 150 lbm/ft^3 = 17,186,400 pounds per square foot
The 114 pounds per square foot of ice loss was correct, so move the decimal place one to the right, and 99.99934% of the gravitational force holding the tectonic plates together is still there.
Zuzu's Petals
@nancydarling:
Best thoughts to you, mama.
Steeplejack
@me:
That’s David Caruso Island. Which I hope gets hit–hard.
valdivia
@nancydarling:
hope your kids are ok and that you hear from them soon. check out the bbc they have better coverage. also look for the chilean red cross on twitter. you should also contact the state dept because the american embassy in chile is keeping track of americans and their safety.
Mnemosyne
Time to doublecheck the earthquake kits and make sure we have enough supplies for the kitties.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
NOAA is saying that they are expecting the wave to be about a foot high at the California/Oregon border area and up to Port Orford. While we are about 150 feet away from the ocean here at home, at least we are just over 100 feet above it. When driving along Highway 101 here you will see remnants of the redwood trees that were destroyed in the tsunami from the 1964 Anchorage, Alaska quake. Pretty damned impressive to see massive tree trunks that are about 20 feet tall and well over 20 feet in diameter that were snapped off like twigs when the wave hit. They are all over the place between Brookings and Crescent City.
Good luck and best wishes to those who have been impacted by this.
Gordon, The Big Express Engine
@trollhattan: i was in Hilo a few years ago and what you realize is that after two tsunamis in a span of like 15 years, the first from an earthquake off alaska and the second from a 9.5 off Chile, instead of rebuilding the waterfront area a THIRD time, they turned it in a giant open park-like space.
Punchy
Pittsburgh is not in the Sue Nammy warning. Crosby fear not his life.
BTW, watching Rick “Dirty” Sanchez using a pencil to approx the ring of fire made me giggle.
Citizen Alan
@Matt Mercer:
FYI, the Amazing Race, like most reality shows, completes filming several months prior to being televised. The racers were actually in Chile back in December. Weirdly, this is like the third or fourth time, I think, that the Race has gone somewhere that ended up suffering a natural disaster, a major terrorist event, or a revolution months after the Racers had left but just in time for that country to make the news in America.
Violet
It looks so awful. A good friend of mine has relatives who are Chilean. I’ve got to give her a call and see if they’re all okay. I’m going to wait until later in the day so as not to clog up phone lines right now. I’m sure they’re pretty concerned.
MikeJ
I didn’t expect Puget Sound to have a tsunami warning. It’s really more of a high water advisory. Either way, I’m not going in the sound today. I am tempted to watch from a clifftop near the ‘rents, but I hope there’s going to be nothing to see, and if there’s anything “exciting” I don’t want to be near it.
Here’s the expected arrival times for coastal locations:
http://wcatwc.arh.noaa.gov/2010/02/27/725245/07/webeta725245-07.txt
feebog
Just heard from my sister who is vacationing on Ohau with my 86 year old mother this week. They are in Kailua, on leeward side (opposite Honolulu). They are packed and ready to move out, but monitoring the situation right now. The house they are staying in, which we have rented many times is just steps from the beach. The one thing that may save them is that Kailua bay is protected by a coral reef that extends about a half mile out. Scary stuff.
Mnemosyne
This is a good reminder why it’s best to give open donations to places like the Red Cross or Doctors Without Borders — it gives them a reserve to start using on the next unexpected emergency rather than tying them down to one specific emergency.
celticdragonchick
@Leelee for Obama:
Movement of magma underground, especially the process known as stoping, can generate mild to moderate intensity earthquakes.
This earthquake has nothing to do with that, however. The plot of it’s epicenter and depth (I have not seen the map yet) almost certainly lie along the axial trace of the subduction zone between the Nazca and South American Plates. The depth can be plotted to give us a sense of the geometry or angle of subduction.
Friction between the plates is what generates these type of earthquakes. Convergent tectonic boundaries like in western South America, can be very complicated (in fact, the Chilean border is used as a text book example and called “The Classic Andean Subduction Margin”).
The system is referred to as an “arc”, since they tend to have some curvature. The forearc typically comprises the subduction trench where the over-ridden plate begins to plunge towards the mantle. Oceanic sediments are scrapped off and form a ‘melange’ that can be 30 km deep. Because the basaltic oceanic plate is “chilled”, it radically depresses the geothermic gradient, which can cause exotic metamorphism conditions (blueschist facies…low temperature high pressure).
The arc itself is comprised of volcanoes which are fed by the melted sediments and locally melted underplating of the continental plate caused by introduction of superheated water vapor and other gases from the subducted plate. Intrusion of magma is common, and placement of granites, etc can be dated to map the lateral movement of the subduction melt zone over time. (much of the plate does not melt, but compresses and metamorphoses at depth as it moves towards the ‘slab graveyard’ thought to be at the core boundary)
The backarc basin tends to have a very high geothermal gradient, especially compared to the forearc basin. Crustal tension tends to result in large scale normal faulting and production of half-graben mountain ranges, although this is not always the case. Sedimentation increases and is fed by the volcanic highlands. This is at apparent odds with the notional convergent stress nature of the entire system.
One interesting idea that models this, however is to leave a block of cheese out in the sun for several hours. The heat will tend to rheologically weaken the cheese, and it will collapse and deform. This can illustrate what happens in the elevated heat gradient of the backarc basin.
Hope this helps :)
Bruuuuce
And in an odd coincidence, this is from Thursday just past: Disaster Awaits Cities in Earthquake Zones – in the NY Times Science section.
I only wish their social and political reportage were that accurate and perceptive.
Djschu
Just heard from my youngest son who works on a cruise ship in Hawaii (NCL Pride of America) he says the port is closed and they are heading south from Hawaii now. Apparently its safer to be out at sea when it hits.
South of I-10
Wow! I have been making pancakes, watching cartoons and generally hanging out with the little one all morning, I had no idea this was going on. My thoughts are with all of you who are either in the quake/tsunami zone or have loved ones there.
Punchy
@MikeJ:
They’re going to issue a tsunami warning to 3/4ths of the globe. Just watch. In an effort to go full-on CYA, they’re going to end up scaring a vast majority of the population that has nothing to fear.
mai naem
Pat Robertson said that the earthquake happened because the Chileans kicked out Augusto Pinochet.
demimondian
Keep in mind that the reports say 120 confirmed dead — but that’s only from the areas we’ve been able to reach and investigate. Cities near the epicenter have suffered devastating damage and are, as yet, unreachable; there will be many more dead there.
Loneoak
OT — wait can you be OT on an open thread even if that open thread is dominated by one topic?
But I found this little piece from Jean-Micheal Cousteau about cetacean captivity very compelling.
demimondian
@Punchy: Yeah…no.
http://www.gdacs.org/reports.asp?eventType=EQ&ID=78821&system=tsunamicalcs&location=CHL&alertlevel=Red&tsid=1860
Those heights are in metres, remember.
burnspbesq
@nancydarling:
Call the Ecuadoran Embassy in DC. The Galapagos are governed by Ecuador.
scarshapedstar
@mai naem:
THAT’S WHAT I SAID! :D
asiangrrlMN
@nancydarling: Oh, I hope you hear from them soon. Let us know as soon as you do.
@TheWatcher: Get out when you need to get out. Keep us posted.
Man. Yeah. Not needed, Mother Nature, but duly noted.
WereBear
@Loneoak: Thanks for that link, what a wonderful statement.
I put it up on my Facebook, too.
Robin G.
@Punchy: Better safe than sorry.
celticdragonchick
@Djschu:
Oceanic tsunamis are only dangerous when they approach the shore. At sea, all you might notice is that the swell count just got very, veeerrryyy attenuated. The wave length of these things is literally hundreds of miles.
Your son will be fine.
scav
@Robin G.: well, yes and no. You’ve got the boy who cried wolf problem in that eventually people stop paying attention to the warnings if there are enough false alarms. You’ve also got the problem of managing the evacuation itself which is not entirely risk free.
Djschu
@celticdragonchick: Good to know. Thanks.
licensed to kill time
We have a tsunami advisory in effect in the SoCal/Baja area. My house is right on a small cliff on the edge of the ocean so I’m keeping an eye on it but basically expect high surf in the next few hours.
Been watching the news from Chile all morning and it’s really awful. One guy they interviewed live actually said he almost peed his pants during the quake. (He said “almost peed ON my pants” which I found endearing).
celticdragonchick
@Djschu:
You bet. :)
I can get overly pedantic like with my page and a half lecture on convergent tectonics above, so I am trying to keep the technical info and jargon down. I find the subject endlessly fascinating, which is why I am a senior in geology, but people who have loved ones possibly in harm’s way need clear explanations of what is happening. I’m doing my best.
Martin
Oh, if only Hawaii had sent Obama’s COLB out to BOB and Orly Taitz, perhaps this wouldn’t have happened.
Stay safe everyone.
@licensed to kill time:
The advisory says 12:15 PST for Long Beach. I think it’s something like a minute per mile adjustment on that, so San Diego might be an hour earlier, etc.
WereBear
@licensed to kill time: Our quakes in update New York topple chimneys (Lake Placid lost dozens of chimneys a few years ago) but rarely do more than that.
Yes, New England has earthquakes.
However, from talking to people and reading accounts of quakes, I have concluded that part of an earthquake’s ability to terrify is how the normal physical world does things it is flat out not supposed to do. Like the floor rippling, for instance.
That can really freak ya out.
Alan
OT:
Bruce Bartlett: The Single-Payer Health Debate We Should Have Had
He adds some perspective to the cost of healthcare.
SiubhanDuinne
I have a colleague whose wife is from Chile and has a lot of family there. I emailed him about 7:00 this morning to express concern and hope they are all safe. Heard back an hour or so ago that all in the family are accounted for and fine, which is a relief. But oh! the pictures coming out of Chile. I don’t speak or understand Español but I’ve been watching some of the Spanish-language TV coverage (primarily to get away from the CNN and MSNBC hysterics) and the raw footage is pretty awful.
I do hope everyone who is in or has loved ones in harm’s way remains safe. Please let us hear from you when you have news.
demimondian
Here’s a nice figure: http://rev.seis.sc.edu/earthquakes/2010/02/27/06/34/17
That was one hell of a big quake.
licensed to kill time
@Martin:
So any time now, I guess. It’s really rainy and windy and grey here, and adds to the impending feeling of doom. The ocean looks riled up but I don’t see any huge waves on the horizon yet…
Punchy
@Robin G.: Until people stop paying attention to them becuase they’re issued so frequently, and the issuance isn’t appropriate except for the CYA aspect.
licensed to kill time
@WereBear:
I have experienced dozens of earthquakes in SoCal/Baja. It IS weird when the earth moves in mysterious ways…there are different feelings to each type of quake. Some are up and down jogs, others are side to side shakes and then there are the rolling, rippling ones. It’s a very strange sensation, and you always get a kind of paralyzed feeling at first, like do I run? ride it out? and then your brain kicks into gear by which point it’s generally over.
HRA
To all in the warning areas, heed the instructions by the authorities and stay safe.
To those with family and friends out there, my thoughts and prayers are with you.
WereBear
@licensed to kill time: The last big one here shook furniture around a good bit. Our lovable dim cat, Puffy, was on a hassock at the time, and my husband watched him ride around the living room with his usual perplexed expression firmly in place.
It was over in about 20 seconds, and Puffy immediately forgot it had ever happened. Judging from his facial expressions, my husband reports it went something like: Wait, didn’t something strange just happen? But I’m sitting here on the hassock. Oh well.
MikeJ
@Punchy: It’s not really cya if they’re giving amplitudes along with times. NOAA isn’t just saying, “run for the hills!”, they’re warning that for most of the US pacific coast there could be a half meter surge.
Martin
@licensed to kill time: From the sounds of it, what we see won’t be any worse than when a storm blows through as we get those cool 15 footers. The risk is that you’re out there expecting a normal sea and suddenly this thing shows up and kicks your ass. The crappy weather actually helps – not likely to be many kids down at the beach today.
Hopefully Hawaii (and elsewhere) won’t see any worse that that either.
celticdragonchick
Just to prove that Medievalism is alive and well, along with vile bad judgment, Pat Robertson is here to tell us that God hates Chile:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/2/27/123350/134
Wile E. Quixote
Why couldn’t it have happened in Alaska?
New Yorker
Let me know when Pat Robertson blames this on the Catholic Church failing to elevate Pinochet to sainthood.
In a more serious comment, at least Chile is a wealthy, developed country with a competent government and should be able to handle this as well as any nation could reasonably be expected to. This is going to be bad, but it won’t be Haiti-level bad.
edit: fuck, Celticdragonchick beat me to it.
demimondian
@Martin: Yes and no.
I don’t know where you are or how high the wave will be. What you need to realize, though, is that the wavelengths of tsunami are so vast that the features which typically protect coastlines from surface waves are basically invisible to a volume wave. The tsunami detects an obstruction and routes around it.
The real catastrophe, then, happens when the tsunami runs into an obstruction it does see — particularly a narrowing one, or, worse, into itself. In that case, there’s a huge volume of incompressible fluid (seawater) going into an ever smaller volume (a bay or a harbor), creating a hugely amplified bore.
That’s why the Japanese word for “harbor wave” is “tsunami”.
licensed to kill time
@WereBear:
I love your description of Puffy on the hassock with a WTF? fugeddaboudit… look. My cats have never really reacted to quakes, only stopping for a moment to readjust their inner gyroscope or something, though the dogs will bark in unison.
@Martin:
Yeah, that’s what it looks like here so far, just high surf. The beach below me is deserted, except for a few seagulls inexplicably sitting on the sand all tucked up and grumpy looking.
celticdragonchick
It looks like the DailyKos story is a satire, so treat it with caution…
DBrown
@MikeJ:You can not guess how high the water level will rise for any given area – underwater terrain (for shallow water) and bays (act like funnels) can cause huge water walls to grow in one area and a few miles away, only a small tide-like rise. Just stay away from the shore. If the ocean water goes out, do not follow but run away as fast as possible and get to higher ground, upper levels of buildings.
SiubhanDuinne
@celticdragonchick #155
Satire has been dead for a while and is getting deader. I honestly can’t tell the difference any more between real life and parody. The Onion, the Washington Post — what’s the diff?
demimondian
@DBrown: Well, yes and no.
I’m not going down to Ocean Shores today, to be sure, but I doubt that there’s really too much threat from a wave with an expected amplitude of 5cm.
WereBear
@licensed to kill time: Ha! During that same quake, James Bond (the Einstein to Puffy’s Curley Howard) made the quite intelligent decision to race into the bedroom and hide under the bed.
Of course, your animals would be more used to the situation.
Punchy
@MikeJ: Yea, but I’m guessing a sizable minority of the population doesn’t read “half-meter” and instead reads “TIDAL WAVE! OH NOEZ!”
After the Sumatra event, peeps too conditioned to think the worst. Hence, CNN’s war-bunker coverage as if Hawaii is about to be swept off the face of the Earth. I guess the issue is that one warning is used to describe what could be a Sumatra event, or what could be almost nothing.
tyrese
Pat believes the Space Monster is still here, still terrorizing Earthlings, and must be appeased.
I think it was just a natural event.
trollhattan
Yikes
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ABPub/zoom/html/2011208410.html
tyrese
The only way the christian god could be more of a Science Fiction villain is if he told us “You will pay for your insolence!”
JGabriel
KITV ABC Hawaii Live News Feed
That was the only local live news feed I could find. NBC and CBS share a local website HawaiiNewsNow, whcih has video clips, but not a live stream.
.
WereBear
@tyrese: Well, if so, we are living in a ridiculously elaborate death trap, aren’t we?
demimondian
@tyrese: That’s satire, please.
Besides, the relevant document is “I have no mouth but I must scream.”
Mnemosyne
@WereBear:
My late kitty Boris was with me for the Northridge earthquake, so even minor quakes would freak him out a bit.
One time in my old apartment, I was napping in the bedroom and G was watching TV in the living room. We had a minor-ish quake and G says that Boris ran into the living room and meowed at him in a very annoyed tone, like, “Whatever it is you’re doing, knock it off — we’re trying to sleep here!”
WereBear
@Mnemosyne: LOL! I love the way WE are responsible for everything.
I wish, sometimes.
JGabriel
So far, French Polynesia, New Zealand’s Chatham Islands, and the Marquesas all report tsunami heights of about 3-3.5 feet (1 meter), which may indicate what we can expect in Hawaii.
Note however that it’s not clear from the reports if those are the peaks waves or not. Also, bays – like Hawaii’s Hilo Bay – can act as channels, or funnels, for incoming tsunami and significantly increase the local height.
.
Svensker
@Robin G:
My hub just told me Haiti wasn’t in the Ro’F, which surprised the heck out of me. Apparently there’s another big honking fault there, along with one scientists are very worried about along the Mississippi. Ack! WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!
(Course, we’re all going to die anyway. Just hoping for comfy in the Barcalounger watching the Jets hug their Super Bowl trophy, rather than smashed like a rat under falling concrete. IYKWIM)
DBrown
@demimondian: Was it half a meter? That would be fifty (50) cm and a huge wall of water could develop in a bay if focused by the shape/bottom. Yeah, if they are calling for 5 cm, then even in a bay that shouldn’t be too large of a pile up.
JGabriel
The Marquesas experienced a peak of about 6′-7′ (two meters), which is usually a good indicator, according to reports, of what to expect in Hawaii.
Most of California / U.S. West Coast is expected to experience surges of about 2.5′.
.
DBrown
@JGabriel: Really? That is huge – remember, that means that the ocean surface rises 6-7 ft and floods far inland. These are not just a single or a few waves that rise up to 6-7 ft above the normal surface level. Look out in Hawaii if it is that high. Again, if you are near the shore and the ocean moves out exposing the bottom – you will have very little time to get away to higer ground. Run away, as fast as you can.
tyrese
I admit, I assumed it was real. Pat Robertson saying something like that was about the most ordinary, everyday thing I could imagine. It didn’t trigger any suspicion at all in me.
JGabriel
@DBrown:
Not the whole ocean surface, those are apparently local peaks due to the bays and other shaping events like tides converging together and increasing amplitude that way.
But yeah, they’re predicting up to 9′ waves in some parts of Hawaii – Hilo Bay and Kahoʻolawe.
.
DBrown
@JGabriel: Then it wasn’t due to the tsunami – a tsunami does raise the ocean surface (whether 1 cm or five metters depending on the displacment and bottom conditions); that is why they are such killers. Waves are not caused by tsunami; rather tsunami are ocean displacments, very different critters. Of course, as the water piles up pushing to shore, waves form at the fronts but the ocean level goes up.
JGabriel
For reference, 6′-7′, or even 9′ waves, while not beanbag, are miniscule in comparison to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which had peak waves of nearly 100′.
So this wave is not likely to cause anywhere near that kind of damage.
.
Mnemosyne
I had forgotten that TBogg’s daughter goes to U of Hawaii. He’s getting the first-hand account. (Which, so far, is not much.)
JGabriel
DBrown: Perhaps I should have said ‘surges’ instead of ‘waves’. But your point is well taken, and the overall height displacement – ignoring local anomalies like bays – seems to be about a meter, maybe 40 cm. That’s an educated guess from what I’m seeing in reporting, from NZ and Hawaii, about various Pacific islands.
Edited to add: Actually, on further reflection, that’s more like the average on shore surge. The overall height displacement, at sea, and far from shore, is probably a lot less.
.
DBrown
@JGabriel: Please check your facts – I saw the vidio’s and the surge (with waves mixed in) was in the ten to fifteen feet range. The problem was that this was the entire local ocean level and it went miles inland. Waves 100′ high would have killed untold millions and whole island areas would have been wiped off the Earth. By the way, a meter is 100 cm or about 3.3 ft
Annamal
Gisbourne in New Zealand is reporting a sudden drop in water levels on the coast and people are being told to steer clear of low-lying areas.
JGabriel
DBrown:
Wikipedia – 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami (100′ figure in second paragraph)
Granted, Wikipedia is not always the most accurate source, but that’s where I got the information, and I can’t think of much reason for the report to be exaggerated.
FYI, the predictions for 6′-9′ local surges in Hawaii are coming from kitv.
.
DBrown
@JGabriel: The wave was NOT 100′ high – period. Water piling upfrom the shore surge (ten to fifteen feet) can run up shore lines and in local areas (bays) climb rather high but the surface water never gets that high and did not. The Wiki writer is not being clear. The picture they show and the film shows a surge in the ten to fifteen foot range.
Polish the Guillotines
Yow. My father and step-mother are on a National Geographic tour in the Antarctic right now. Makes this a little nerve-wracking.
daryljfontaine
@Citizen Alan: PHIL KEOGHAN’S EVIL PLAN IS REVEALED!
D
Tax Analyst
@Steve:
Why it must be for allowing the wonderful, God-fearing Augusto Pinochet to be arrested and charged with all those piddly-little disappearance and torture incidents several years back.
Because after all he was our friend and not a Godless commie-pinko or one of those “s” word guys, either.
Beltane said:
“Chile just elected a conservative government. Pat Robertson will have to change his rationale for this one.”
Delayed reaction.
TenguPhule
Well, here it comes.
*Battens down*
TenguPhule
The fact that Pat Robertson has not yet been anally raped to death by mutant killer wombats is proof that there is no Just and Loving God.
JGabriel
@DBrown: Whatever, dude. I’m not about to stake my reputation upon – or get into an argument over – the accuracy of Wikipedia. People can read the article and decide for themselves.
That said, this report from the Seattle PI – with links to the Geological Survey of Japan and NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Lab – tends to support the conclusion that Aceh, in Indonesia, experienced local crests of 24-30 meters (i.e. 80′-100′), based upon evidence including building damages and water line marks on trees.
And, despite your insistence that the videos you saw only showed 10′-15′ surges, it doesn’t seem particularly surprising that there wouldn’t be video from areas where the surge was much higher, assuming any videographer that was present probably would have been washed out to sea.
.
JGabriel
@Polish the Guillotines:
Are they on land or at sea? If they’re on a boat far from shore, or far inland, they probably won’t even notice it.
.
demimondian
@JGabriel: It is believable that the peak displacement was locally of that magnitude, particularly near Acer, as it was very near to the epicenter. I don’t remember what the peak heights in that area were, but they were astounding — remember, the fault shifted 30m.
Polish the Guillotines
@JGabriel:
Polish the Guillotines
@JGabriel:
They’ve been on and off. I’d imagine, with the amount of warning time, that they’re all aboard and just waiting it out.
Unfortunately, communication from there can be spotty. I get periodic updates from my father, so I’m sure I’ll hear about it eventually.
Just heard a dude from the Pacific Tsunami Warning center say there’s been damage in Ventura, CA. Wow. Gotta look that up.
JSD
I’m in Honolulu now. It’s noon and the tsunami is scheduled to be occurring presently. We’re stocked up with food and water prepped for two weeks. However, so far things are milder than expected.
We’re not forecasted to get a wall of water a la Banda Aceh, but just a series of fast, very high tides of the next several hours. I’m up next to punchbowl, so in no danger, but the biggest danger is possible loss of power for a while and contamination of the water supply.
JGabriel
JSD: thanks for the local report. Stay safe, we’re all hoping it stays mild for you guys out there. So far, it sounds like it’s not going to be too bad.
On KITV, it sounds like the waves are getting a little stronger, not too bad, but they just got a stronger wave in Hilo Bay, with a little minor flooding, just some overflow really, of the river that empties out there.
.
JGabriel
Polish the Guillotines:
Yeah, I heard that too. Kind of surprising, they were only expecting a surge of a couple feet there. I’m guessing it’s pretty minor. Let us know if you hear more, or otherwise.
Best wishes for your parents. This doesn’t seem to be all that serious so far.
.
Brachiator
Jenny Sanford’s divorce came through recently (Judge Grants Jenny Sanford a Divorce from Cheating Gov. Mark Sanford). Maybe the deity was trying to hit Argentina and had a bad aim.
Zuzu's Petals
@Djschu:
I remember reading about people who were out scuba diving during the Christmas tsunami and said they didn’t even realize what had happened until they saw the damage onshore.
Polish the Guillotines
@JGabriel: Thanks for the good wishes.
The only things I’ve been able to dig up on Ventura (from SoCal news) suggests much ado about nothing. That’s the breaks with live news.
I’m in the Bay Area, and there are advisories up with some beach closures. Nothing on the order of a full warning, so it’s probably going to be a non-event for NorCal.
Zuzu's Petals
@WereBear:
That happened to me in a California earthquake. Standing on the street in front of my house, I noticed the street lamps bouncing…looked down and the asphalt was literally rippling under my feet. First thought, should I stay or should I go … inside.
WereBear
@Zuzu’s Petals: It’s my understanding that outside is better than inside. Perhaps they meant, waaaaaaay outside, like in a field.
Zuzu's Petals
@WereBear:
I know, you have that moment of worrying about flying roof tiles and power lines and stuff. You just feel confused and freaked out, really. But common sense prevailed and I stayed outside. It was over in seconds anyway.
Polish the Guillotines
Whew. Just got email from my dad. No problems. Although, they did fly in to Santiago, Chile and will be flying out from there presuming the airport is up and running by next Thursday. It’s currently closed down due to power loss.
Crazy stuff.
elmertfudd
Tsunami warning for Hawaii is now cancelled. Whew…
Yutsano
@elmertfudd: Yes but New Zealand and Australia are next on the list. At least for me and friends there I’m gonna keep holding my breath.
TheWatcher
All clear here. Until next time.
Seanly
What kind of idiots are they at CNN? They had Chad Myers, a meteorologist, talking about how the earthquake in Haiti was worse than the Chilean one. He was mixing and matching the Richter Scale with the Modified Mercali scale and talking about multiplying the numbers together and how many people were affected. Richter Scale is a measurement of the strength based on the energy released. Modified Mercali is a subjective scale based on the observed damage (or people’s perception at lower levels).
Even if his approach was right, he was also getting the levels of the MM scale wrong. He was contending that the Chilean EQ was ot as strong because the observed damage and number of people affected were lower. However, there were numerous bridges and buildings collapsed in parts of Chile which would be an XI on the MM scale.
Based on the amount of devastation, the Haitian EQ was a very severe one, but the Chilean one was much stronger.
Here’s a link to an LA Times article describing the difference.
JSD
Thanks, JGabriel.
Glad this was a mild one. Better safe than sorry. The Hawaii civil defense crews and media did a great job of getting the word out and evacuating low lying areas. No deaths and very little damage occurred as far as I can tell from news reports.
My thoughts are with the Chileans tonight.
blooggy
Some one collected quick scientific and tehnical details of Chile earthquake. Want to share it with others.
Chile Earthquake 2010 : Scientific and Tehnical details
Dutch
Well here we go, its time.
For all you who live in the Bay area and SoCal, enjoy your lives as they are for now. Time is shortly going to catch up on you and change your outlook on life forever. If your lucky you’ll only receive a land based 8.5 or 9.0 from the many faults around the San Andreas line, if your out of luck, your likey to get a coastal uplift and a tsunami that will make Sumarta look like an accident in a paddling pool.