6.4 magnitude earthquake strikes volcanic islands near Antarctica

From The Star Advisor, via The Extinction Protocol:

October 9, 2012 – ANTARTICA – A preliminary 6.4-magnitude earthquake struck 452 miles northwest of the Balleny Islands region early this morning at 2:32 a.m., but presented no tsunami threat to Hawaii, according to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. The earthquake struck at a depth of about 6.3 miles. The Balleny Islands are a series of uninhabited volcanic islands that are part of Antarctica.

Noted, as Patrick Geryl has some alignment concerns this weekend, and an active Sun region is rotating towards us.

Sumatran earthquakes in April were part of tectonic plate breakup

Huge, and worrisome.  Not that anyone will pay attention until the end results manifest:  Big, Bigass, muthafuckin quakes!  The billion dollar question:  When?  Now?  100, 1000, or 1 million years from now? The L.A. Times, via The Extinction Protocol:

Planet Earth may be 4.5 billion years old, but that doesn’t mean it can’t serve up a shattering surprise now and again. Such was the case on April 11 when two massive earthquakes erupted beneath the Indian Ocean off the coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, far from the usual danger zones. Now scientists say the seafloor ruptures are part of a long suspected, yet never before observed, event: the slow-motion splitting of a vast tectonic plate. The first of the quakes, a magnitude 8.7, was 20 times more powerful than California’s long anticipated “big one” and tore a complex network of faults deep in the ocean floor. The violence also triggered unusually large aftershocks thousands of miles away, including four off North America’s western coast. “It was jaw-dropping,” said Thorne Lay, a professor of Earth and planetary sciences at UC Santa Cruz. “It was like nothing we’d ever seen.” At first, Lay wondered whether the computer code he used to analyze earthquakes was wrong.  Eventually, he and other scientists realized that they had documented the breakup of the Indo-Australian plate into two pieces, an epic process that began roughly 50 million years ago and will continue for tens of millions more.

Lay and other scientists reported their findings online Wednesday in the journal Nature. Most great earthquakes occur along plate borders, where one plate dives beneath the adjoining plate and sinks deep into Earth’s mantle, a process called subduction. The April 11 quakes, however, occurred in the middle of the plate and involved a number of strike-slip faults, meaning the ground on one side of the fault moves horizontally past ground on the other side. Scientists say the 8.7 main shock broke four faults. The quake lasted 2 minutes and 40 seconds — most last just seconds — and was followed by a second main shock, of magnitude 8.2, two hours later.

7.6 Costa Rican earthquake did not relieve fault pressure: expect another one equal or greater, scientists warn

Not great news for Costa Ricans:  Another one of equal or greater magnitude is predicted to occur.  Tico Times, via The Extinction Protocol.

September 12, 2012 – COSTA RICA - After a series of analyses conducted in the northwestern province of Guanacaste, experts from the Volcanological and Seismological Observatory of Costa Rica (Ovsicori) reported Tuesday that another quake of equal or greater magnitude could occur in Nicoya Peninsula, but predicting when it would happen is “impossible.” Marino Protti, Ovsicori’s lead scientist, explained that the magintude-7.6 earthquake on Sept. 5 caused a 40 percent slip and an inclination of 1.8 meters on the fault located in Nicoya. He also said that although the quake was the “big one” experts had been expecting for Guanacaste, the fault ruptured by only 50 percent, meaning that the possibility that another earthquake of equal or greater magnitude in the area still remains. Ovsicori’s report, released Tuesday, also stated that the earthquake triggered the activation of three faults in Aguas Zarcas (in the northern region), the Guanacaste Volcanic Area and Irazú Volcano (north of Cartago). Seismologists will continue monitoring the areas. By Tuesday morning, the total count of aftershocks from the recent earthquake was 1,650. On Sept. 5 at 8:42 a.m., the 7.6-magnitude earthquake shook the country and was felt as far away as Nicaraguan and Panama. Its epicenter was located 20 kilometers northwest of Sámara in the Nicoya Península. –Tico Times

M5.1 hit Fukushima JMA seismic intensity 4 “Live cam recorded Fukushima plant shaken”

I bet that was some serious on-site excitement.  Fukushima Diary.  Bonus "That's a lot of shaking for a 5.1 earthquake!" video of the plant during the quake.

The Calm Before The Tectonic Storm?

Have you noticed a lack of 7.0 + magnitude earthquakes recently?  According to this poster at GLP,  the planet averages at least one earthquake a month that strong or stronger, and the USGS hasn't listed a 7 or higher eq since April 11.  Have we cured earthquakes? 

Maybe the plates are locked..  Maybe that's not such a good thing.  What event will change this static dynamic, and how explosive will it be?

Shaking all over: Map of every major earthquake since 1898 reveals stunning image of planet's danger zones

Courtesy The Daily Mail/UK.  I'm not sure, though, what is defined as "major."  I'm guessing magnitude 6.  Impressive map:

If you are looking for somewhere safe from an earthquake, this might help.



For this map shows the where every major quake has struck since 1898, and as you can see, the edge of the Pacific Ocean appears particularly dangerous. In total there are a staggering 203,186 of them, dotted all over the world.
The neon-coloured map was created as a side-project by mapping manager John Nelson, in a case of taking his work home with him, as he works for data-visualisation software maker IDV Solutions.

Go to the link.  This map is bigger, and there's a bonus map of US tornadic activity over the last 61 years.  It's like weather nerd catnip!