8.2 magnitude earthquake off Russia with potential to generate a tsunami

http://wcatwc.arh.noaa.gov/events/PAAQ/2013/05/24/mnafyn/1/WEAK53/WEAK53.txt

by hgezim • 13 years ago

108 56 13 years ago

wcatwc.arh.noaa.gov

mattryanharris• 13 years ago

...but will it?

lysium2• 13 years ago

No: http://wcatwc.arh.noaa.gov/events/PAAQ/2013/05/24/mnafyn/2/W...

FoeNyx• 13 years ago

indeed, as this document indicates : "DUE TO THE DEPTH OF THE EARTHQUAKE NO TSUNAMI IS EXPECTED."

The Depth of the subterranean earthquake is generally a major factor in Tsunami (The main factor being the displacement of the water mass above).

The last two M9~ magnitude earthquakes causing deadly tsunamis (Indian Ocean 2004, Japan 2011) were only at a Depth of 30km (19mi). This one is very deep, at 619km (385mi) below the surface.

lysium2• 13 years ago

Here's a map and more info: http://wcatwc.arh.noaa.gov/?p=PAAQ/2013/05/24/mnafyn/2/WEAK5...

Currently (6:51 UTC), no warnings.

jensnockert• 13 years ago

Updated with more information, there won't be a tsunami (probably) http://wcatwc.arh.noaa.gov/events/PAAQ/2013/05/24/mnafyn/2/W...

marquis2• 13 years ago

Supplementary data to your link in case of a change: historical tsunami travel times in hours: http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/hazard/tsu_travel_time_events.shtml...

Most relevant: http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/hazard/icons/1923_0203.jpg

pjungwir• 13 years ago

How can a tsunami cross the Pacific in 10 hours? Isn't that as fast as an airliner? Of course I'm not questioning the maps, but isn't that shocking? How does it work?

cskau• 13 years ago

No tsunami warning for Japan as of writing:

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/sokuho/tsunami/index.html

kbar13• 13 years ago

the NOAA "discussion" section used to be a really interesting read, wonder where that went...

thresh• 13 years ago

Being in Moscow, which is 6000+ km away from the epicentre of the earthquake, we still felt the tremors... Fascinating.

huhtenberg2• 13 years ago

I find this very hard to believe.

rammark• 13 years ago

It's possible because of the depth.

http://rt.com/news/quake-asia-tsunami-warning-729

JoeAltmaier2• 13 years ago

Similar situation involving meteorites:

"I would sooner believe that two Yankee professors would lie than that stones would fall from heaven!" - Thomas Jefferson

The point being, whether we believe it or not changes nothing. This person experienced it.

Grue3• 13 years ago

I am also in Moscow and I call bullshit on this.

cema• 13 years ago

Why? I have heard (I mean, read) people reporting having felt slight tremors. Example ([ru]): http://nina-petrovna.livejournal.com/797021.html

btilly• 13 years ago

I have experienced plenty of earthquakes where one person felt it quite strongly and another living nearby didn't.

How easy it is to feel varies depending on what floor you're on, how well constructed your building is, what kind of ground you're standing on, etc, etc, etc.

Furthermore at that distance the earthquake should be a slow roller, which means that someone who is focused on something might not notice while another person in the same room could notice, realize how much motion there is, and freak out. I've been there as well - as the person watching a movie who ignored an earthquake that everyone outside of the movie was quite aware of.

So the fact that you live in Moscow and didn't feel it is not grounds to call BS on someone else claiming that they felt it.

toddsiegel• 13 years ago

We felt here in India, in Gurgaon, near Delhi.

neilxdsouza• 13 years ago

Off topic: I am in Gurgaon too!

MarlonPro• 13 years ago

it's just past midnight here in socal. I live in Long Beach, CA - few miles from the pacific ocean. I'm closely watching http://ptwc.weather.gov/ . No warning as of this writing.

D4M14N• 13 years ago

Is a depth of 385 miles normal? That would put it deep in the earths mantle wouldnt it?

glurgh• 13 years ago

It's very deep - seems to have something to do with subduction, take a look at

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/usb000h4jh#...

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wadati%E2%80%93Benioff_zone

Looks like they can be felt very far but are less dangerous.

nitrogen• 13 years ago

I imagine NOAA and NWS bulletins are in all caps for compatibility with ancient systems, but I still have to wonder if they'll ever see a reason to start using lowercase letters.

waterlesscloud• 13 years ago

My guess is it's for legibility on faxes, which go out over radio.

But it does seem like there might come a day when that tech is completely obsoleted.

mtgx• 13 years ago

Is it crazy to think that there may be a pattern for all these strong earthquakes in the past few years since the Haiti one, and that they may be linked?

InclinedPlane• 13 years ago

Do you mean a pattern of earthquakes being more common in highly earthquake prone areas? Yeah, that's expected.

dasil003• 13 years ago

Could it be that the Haiti one was the first earthquake you started paying attention to?

marquis2• 13 years ago

It's the Pacific Ring of Fire, which includes Haiti, Japan, Chile, New Zealand, Solomon Islands and Indonesia (list goes on) which have had deadly quakes in the last few years - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_of_Fire

*edit, not Haiti which has its own crazy deep-earth stuff going on in the area

softbuilder• 13 years ago

The ring of fire doesn't seem to include Haiti: http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=36428

The Caribbean instead has it's own smaller "ring": http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2010/0121/Haiti-eart...

brazzy• 13 years ago

It's incorrect but not crazy: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=patternicit...

marshray• 13 years ago

I have read speculation about that too. I don't think it's crazy, but I don't think it's widely accepted as a significant correlation by seismologists either.

guard-of-terra• 13 years ago

There is an idea where strong earthquakes are linked to the end of large-scale nuclear tests.

Presumably nuclear tests helped tensions to resolve in small earthquakes and now they build up and release a devastating one.

vsbuffalo• 13 years ago

We felt a small earthquake in Davis, CA earlier tonight. Active day for our earth! I quite like earthly events like this — they really make one realize how minuscule we are.

salgernon• 13 years ago

I was in mountain view for the '89 loma prieta quake. The walls of our tilt-up on easy street we're waving like flags, and the huge Costco shelves in the shipping room collapsed, shattering a workers arm. I know that this is nothing like the horrors that other people in quakes have faced, but for years afterwards my flesh would crawl when a large truck would pass by. Then I moved to Oakland just in time for the '91 firestorm...

slashedzero• 13 years ago

Only half of us felt it here in Sacramento, CA. It seriously just felt like someone slammed a door very hard.

iSnow2• 13 years ago

Why is this still all-caps - in 2013? It's not like there are any teletype lines left that cannot process lower case.

Is this some kind of tradition or does NOAA still use EBCDIC mainframes?

toddrew• 13 years ago

These messages are always in caps to send faster over slower systems.

http://www.alternatewars.com/BBOW/Computing/Capital_Letters....

I spent a decade as a communicator in the navy and radio teletype is still the primary method of communication at sea.

tricolon• 13 years ago

That makes sense.

However, I argue that the NOAA could serve their warnings on the web in all lowercase for the sake of readability. Then again, that could be a quick hack for someone.

iSnow2• 13 years ago

Interesting, thanks. I had no idea something like teletype was still operational, let alone in active use.

ams6110• 13 years ago

Especially for submarines, to communicate underwater you need very low frequency radio and the bandwidth is correspondingly low. Sure they can surface and get satellite signals but that's not always practical depending on where they are and what their mission is.

mpyne• 13 years ago

You might be interested to know that Naval message traffic is now permitted to use lowercase letters in some instances (think shore-side). This is an extremely recent change but I think I've even seen it used already with a message released from SECNAV.

andrewcooke• 13 years ago

fwiw the tsunami warning systems (one each coast) in the usa are currently in the process of selecting and implementing a major upgrade (i am working on one of the bids in a very minor role[1]) so you can expect changes in the next few years (but i have no idea about this particular issue).

[1] which, incidentally, involved me sending thousands of SMS alerts to a co-worker yesterday evening as i ran through a replay of the chile earthquake, effectively DOSing[2] his phone. most entertainment i've had in months. beep. new magnitude estimate. beep. beep. beeeeep... :o)

[2] it's ok, it's only a demo, promise.

Roboprog• 13 years ago

There was a 6.5 magnitude aftershock, near the site of the 8.2, this morning as well. Also just under 400 miles deep.

8.2 magnitude earthquake off Russia with potential to generate a tsunami

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