Earthquakes

We tend not to think about it, but we do, daily - we tell ourselves that on any given day it could happen, but we don't do much more than superficially contemplate the event, rather than say, the after effects.

It has been over 16 years since we had a large earthquake.  It doesn't seem like it yet it does, all at the same time, in an odd way.  1994 - 16 = 1977-78.  We surely had several quakes between 1977-78 and 1994, yet we have had none (of any notice).

16+ years















earthquakes

California: The Big One is Almost Here.

Californians - our time is coming.  It is nearly here, and when it arrives, we are pretty much finished.

Get ready for the ride of our lives (and for many, the end of our lives).



Study: Southern California Is Overdue for a Catastrophic Earthquake


By Julie

08/21/2010
AOLnews
Cleveleandleader


According to a long-awaited, landmark study released on Friday, Southern California is overdue for a major earthquake a long the San Andreas fault.

Results of the study came after scientists spend years studying the geology of the Carrizo Plain area of the San Andreas fault, which is located about 100 miles northwest of Los Angeles. The study also discovered that earthquakes have occured far more often along the San Andreas than previously believed.

University of California, Irvine, researcher Sinan Akciz said in a statement:

"What we know is for the last 700 years, earthquakes on the southern San Andreas fault have been much more frequent than everyone thought. Data presented here contradict previously published reports."

Akciz's colleague and fellow researcher Lisa Grand Ludwig added:

"People should not stick their heads in the ground. There are storm clouds gathered on the horizon. Does that mean it's definitely going to rain? No, but when you have that many clouds, you think, 'I'm going to take my umbrella with me today.' That's what this research does: It gives us a chance to prepare."

The last major earthquake along that portion of the San Andreas fault occurred in 1857. However, UC Irvine and Arizona State University scientists found that earthquakes have occurred as often as every 45 to 144 years. That means the region is overdue for a catastrophic earthquake infamously referred to as "The Big One."

Results of this study echo what many seismologists in Southern California have been saying for some time now: that the San Andreas has been in a relatively quiet period and is due for a major quake.

The study utilized charcoal samples to look for earthquake activity dating back centuries. The results were published Friday in the journal Geology.



Now - a few comments about the massive and catastrophic quake which will hit Los Angeles sometime very soon - it will pretty much end things for all of us.

Our state has no money.

Our state is laying off state employees.

Our cities are ending contracts with various contractors and sub-contracting services because they HAVE NO MONEY.  The City of Los Angeles is short millions from even being close to having a balanced budget.  The cities have raised their local taxation levels already.  People are leaving the state (the ones with real money).  Our colleges and schools have been cut dramatically, and our federal government - Mr. Obama's heavy taxation has yet to occur, but is fast approaching and all those taxes are for the health plan he says is free. 

When our houses fall down - who are you gonna call? 

When we have no car, no power, no phone, no water, no food - who are you going to call?

The federal government?  Do you honestly think Obama can handle a crisis of this magnitude?  You don't trust the Congress (less than 25% approval rating), and more than half of all Americans don't trust Obama.

Mr. Obama has told us already, publicly, that if a nuclear device or any wmd goes off in the US, we will be on our own for more than 72 hours.  An earthquake is natures wmd. 

Our colleges and schools destroyed, the state out of money, our federal government busily working on our free healthcare ... I fear for our survival.  Will we manage - most of us will, yes.  Will the US overcome the challenge - better than anyone else, yes.  Will we be humiliated by Obama - yes.  He will accept the tents and water and pumps and blankets offered by Cuba and Iran, Syria, and Russia - not intended to help, but to humiliate.  And he will do so without any understanding.  We will suffer the quake, the high taxes afterward, and a collapse of much of what we still believe.

Can we make it out?  We may, depending almost entirely on the next 6-12 months.









earthquake

The Sun is Awakening

"The sun is waking up from a deep slumber, and in the next few years we expect to see much higher levels of solar activity. At the same time, our technological society has developed an unprecedented sensitivity to solar storms. The intersection of these two issues is what we're getting together to discuss."

- NASA


Interesting.  Have to also consider other earth events which may be related, or have however distant a connection, to the awakening.


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
sun

Hurry Up, Do Something - Doesn't Matter What - Haiti

Often, when terrible and tragic events overtake a community, a region, a country, Americans feel compelled to give, and we give, whatever our economic situation, we give - billions in aid, and not from a government, but from people.  Of course, some are guilted into giving, often by celebrities who within hours of the earthquake were moving heaven and earth to get funds and foods and supplies to Haiti.  A telethon was had, and money raised. 

We give, and the world gave - some gave a tent, others gave a blanket, but they all gave.  That was what we were told was needed, we had to do it, we had to help.

We did, and now they ... some do not have anything because, well, read the column.  Perhaps the answer is to not always act first without thinking through the reprecussions.  It doesn't take long - 48 hours, rational thought instead of emotion, analysis and evaluation.  Perhaps you make something bad even worse if you do not.




Women, girls rape victims in Haiti quake aftermath




By MICHELLE FAUL, Associated Press Writer
Tue Mar 16, 8:43 pm ET



.PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – When the young woman needed to use the toilet, she went out into the darkened tent camp and was attacked by three men.

"They grabbed me, put their hands over my mouth and then the three of them took turns," the slender 21-year-old said, wriggling with discomfort as she nursed her baby girl, born three days before Haiti's devastating quake.

"I am so ashamed. We're scared people will find out and shun us," said the woman, who suffers from abdominal pain and itching, likely from an infection contracted during the attack.

Women and children as young as 2, already traumatized by the loss of homes and loved ones in the Jan. 12 catastrophe, are now falling victim to rapists in the sprawling tent cities that have become home to hundreds of thousands of people.

With no lighting and no security, they are menacing places after sunset. Sexual assaults are daily occurrences in the biggest camps, aid workers say — and most attacks go unreported because of the shame, social stigma and fear of reprisals from attackers.

Rape was a big problem in Haiti even before the earthquake and frequently was used as a political weapon in times of upheaval. Both times the first democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was ousted, his enemies assassinated his male supporters and raped their wives and daughters.

[I guess Danny Glover forgot to mention this small detail.]
But the quake that killed an estimated 200,000 people has made women and girls ever more vulnerable. They have lost their homes and are forced to sleep in flimsy tents or tarp-covered lean-tos. They've lost male protection with the deaths of husbands, brothers and sons. And they are living in close quarters with strangers.

The 21-year-old said her family has received no food aid because the Haitian men handing out coupons for food distribution demand sexual favors.

Sex-for-food is not uncommon in the camps, said a report issued Tuesday by the Interuniversity Institute for Research and Development in Haiti. "In particular, young girls have to negotiate sexually in order to get shelter from the rains and access to food aid."

At the camp on Monday where the young mother was gang-raped, a woman in shorts tried to bathe discreetly. Stripped to her waist, she faced her blue tarp tent, her back to the rows of other shelters.

Nearby, a teenage girl squatted behind a pile of garbage, trying to avoid the stench and clouds of flies around tarp-covered latrines that provide the only privacy, but also are places where women are attacked.

In this camp, some 47,000 people live crowded into what used to be a sports ground in a neighborhood that always has been dangerous. Residents include a dozen escaped prisoners, among them a man accused of a notorious murder, according to Fritznel Pierre, a human rights advocate who lives at the camp.

"But nobody says anything because they're scared, scared of the criminals and scared of the police," he said.

Pierre has documented three other gang rapes in the camp, including of a 17-year-old who says she was a virgin before six men attacked her and raped her repeatedly.

"I really worry about the teenager because she has no one to look out for her. She says she sees her attackers but is afraid to report them because she would then have to leave the camp and she has nowhere to go," Pierre said.

Investigators for Human Rights Watch reported the first three gang rapes to U.N. officials. Then, two weeks later, on Feb. 27, the 21-year-old mother was gang-raped.

Only a week later did U.N. police officers begin patrolling.

"For me it seems completely bizarre that for this one camp that everyone knows is unsafe, it's taken them three weeks to get a patrol going," said Liesl Gerntholtz, executive director of the agency's women's rights division. "It's unrealistic to expect patrols in camps all the time, but I think they can identify hotspots and provide security to those spots."

Pierre complained that the U.N. patrols are ineffective. "They only drive their cars down the one road that covers only a small portion of the camp. They never get out of their cars," he said.

In the hilltop suburb of Petionville, where plush mansions look out over slums on hillsides and in ravines, a 7-year-old rape victim was being treated Monday in the hospital of a tent camp set up on a golf course. Another child, a 2-year-old, had been raped in the same camp two weeks earlier.

The toddler is taking antibiotics for a gonorrhea infection of the mouth, according to Alison Thompson, who is the volunteer medical coordinator for a Haitian relief group created by Sean Penn. She helped treat both children.

[They need to die.  These animals need to die.  They do not need counseling, food, aid, support, or arrest - they need to die.  How does the aid cause this - it doesn't, but you push people to act, to do something, we give, and then we feel like we have done our part and you disappear, but the worst has just started for many and it has nothing to do with aid.  You know what would help them more than food?  If Matt Damon sent 6 men to patrol the camps.  He can afford it, perhaps simply hire ex-soldiers who have been checked out, hire someone to do it - save lives. ]

"Women aren't being protected," Thompson said. "So when the lights go down is when the rapes increase, and it's happening daily in all the camps in Port-au-Prince."

Besides sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy, victims face possible HIV infection. Haiti has the highest infection rate for the virus that causes AIDS in the Western hemisphere, with one in 50 people infected.

Among the many rape victims is an 18-year-old girl who lost her parents, grandmother, a sister and three cousins to the quake. She was roaming the streets distraught when a man approached her, promising her his wife would look after her, she said.

The middle-aged man took her to a house, then left and came back with two men. The three raped her repeatedly until she managed to escape.

The teen is among dozens of rape victims who have sought help from KOFAVIV, a group of Haitian women who survived political rapes in 2004. Their offices were destroyed in the quake and they now operate from a tent.

They brought the victims to American volunteer lawyers who came to Port-au-Prince a week ago to identify Haitians who may qualify for humanitarian parole to live in the United States.

"I've been here five days and have spoken to 30 (rape) survivors including a dozen under 18. Their stories are horrific. I would be catatonic," said San Francisco lawyer Jayne Fleming.

Few rapes are reported because women often face humiliating scrutiny from police officers who suggest they invited the attacks and even nurses who contend young girls were "too hot" in their dress style, according to Delva Marie Eramithe, a KOFAVIV leader.

Her own 18-year-old daughter was saved from an attacker who dragged the girl into a dark alley between tents at the downtown camp sprawling across Champs de Mars plaza. The assailant did not see the teen's three sisters, who had been walking behind her, and all four of them managed to beat him and run him off.

Soon after, he returned to their tent with three other men and a gun, Eramithe said.

While a male neighbor argued with the men, Eramithe and her daughters went to a nearby police station to report the attempted rape.

"We told them the man who attacked her was right there at our tent, just two blocks away," Eramithe said. "But one policeman said they had received reports of nothing but raping, thefts and domestic beatings all day and there's nothing they can do. The other police officer said the only person who can do anything is President (Rene) Preval."

When she insisted, they gave her the license plate of a police van patrolling the camp perimeter. Eventually she found the patrol car but that officer "told us to go and get the attacker and bring him to them."

Police spokesman Gary Desrosiers said only 24 rapes have been reported to Haitian authorities this year. Several suspects were detained, but many escaped when prisons collapsed in the quake, he said.

Police Chief Mario Andresol blamed the attacks on the more than 7,000 prisoners who escaped. "Bandits are taking advantage to harass and rape women and young girls under the tents," he told reporters two weeks after the quake.

"We are aware of problem ... but it's not a priority," Information Minister Marie-Laurence Jocelyn Lassegue said last month.

Haitian police officers with stations minutes from some of the largest camps do not patrol — a fact that spokesman Desrosiers blames on the loss of dozens of officers killed in the quake, as well as scores who remain missing and more than 250 who were injured.

Still, that leaves some 9,600 Haitian police officers and 2,000 U.N. police officers.

The first signs of action came when U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon arrived Sunday, and a contingent of female U.N. and Haitian police officers set up a tent at the camp.

Ban promised the camps will be "safe and secure."

He praised the security offered by Haitian and U.N. police and told the women officers: "We must protect these women and girls. ... If they are sexually abused and attacked and raped, that is totally unacceptable and intolerable, and we must stop it."

On Monday, a man with a bullhorn was at the camp during a food distribution, saying "We don't want men raping women, do we?"

No, the women waiting in line yelled back.

Still, the fear was palpable among the most vulnerable. The 18-year-old orphaned rape victim was nervous about the time, even though it was only mid-afternoon.

"I have to find somewhere to sleep, near some people who might help me if there's trouble," she said.

"It scares me, the way the men look at me, and they know I'm all alone."
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
haiti

I hope The One, the Obamessiah, is ready for a Big One in California.  I hope the Congress, ready to spend trillions on health care, is prepared to spend trillions to rebuild California.

Our time is fast approaching, and while we will not be as destroyed as Haiti - we are LONG overdue given the temblor activity along the fault zones on each side of the plate over the last couple years.

The Big One is Coming, sooner than later.








earthquake

The Big One is .... Coming?

Batten down the hatches, tie down your paintings, lock the cabinets, grab the food ...




Mysterious tremors detected on San Andreas Fault

Jul 9, 2009
By ALICIA CHANG
AP Science Writer

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Scientists have detected a spike in underground rumblings on a section of California's San Andreas Fault that produced a magnitude-7.8 earthquake in 1857.

What these mysterious vibrations say about future earthquakes is far from certain. But some think the deep tremors suggest underground stress may be building up faster than expected and may indicate an increased risk of a major temblor.

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, monitored seismic activity on the fault's central section between July 2001 and February 2009 and recorded more than 2,000 tremors. The tremors lasted mere minutes to nearly half an hour.

Unlike earthquakes, tremors occur deeper below the surface and the shaking lasts longer.
During the study period, two strong earthquakes hit—a magnitude-6.5 in 2003 and a magnitude-6.0 a year later. Scientists noticed the frequency of the tremors doubled after the 2003 quake and jumped six-fold after 2004.

Tremor episodes persist today. Though the frequency of tremors have declined since 2004, scientists are still concerned because they are still at a level that is twice as high as before the 2003 quake.

The team also recorded unusually strong rumblings days before the 2004 temblor.








earthquake

The Big One: It is Coming, just not today.

Study finds troubling pattern of Southern California quakes

The southern stretch of the San Andreas fault has had a major temblor about every 137 years, according to new research. The latest looks to be overdue.

By Jia-Rui Chong
January 24, 2009
Los Angeles Times


Large earthquakes have rumbled along a southern section of the San Andreas fault more frequently than previously believed, suggesting that Southern California could be overdue for a strong temblor on the notorious fault line, a new study has found.

The Carrizo Plain section of the San Andreas has not seen a massive quake since the much-researched Fort Tejon temblor of 1857, which at an estimated magnitude of 7.9 is considered the most powerful earthquake to hit Southern California in modern times.

But the new research by UC Irvine scientists, to be published next week, found that major quakes occurred there roughly every 137 years over the last 700 years. Until now, scientists believed big quakes occurred along the fault roughly every 200 years.

The findings are significant because seismologists have long believed this portion of the fault is capable of sparking the so-called Big One that officials have for decades warned will eventually occur in Southern California.

"It's been long enough since 1857 that we should be concerned about another great earthquake that ruptures through this part of the fault," said Ken Hudnut, a geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey in Pasadena who was not involved in the study.

Many scientists thought the Carrizo area produced relatively infrequent but large-scale earthquakes such as the Fort Tejon temblor. The new work suggests the area produces more quakes but also ones of a smaller magnitude than Fort Tejon, said Ray Weldon, a University of Oregon geologist who was not involved in the research but reviewed the paper for the Journal of Geophysical Research.

Such temblors, experts warned, would likely be at least as big as the 1994 Northridge quake, which had a magnitude of 6.7.

"Even moderate earthquakes on the San Andreas can cause considerable damage, so the overall hazard and risk has gone up," Weldon said.

The section of the San Andreas fault threading through the dry Carrizo Plain is one of the most famous and photographed parts of the fault because creek beds and other features on one side of the fault have clearly shifted away from matching features on the other side. About 100 miles northwest of Los Angeles, the Carrizo area was one of the main sections that ruptured in the 1857 quake. That rupture, roaring southwest into the Los Angeles Basin, rocked parts of the region so hard that men were thrown to the ground.


[To read the rest of the article, click on the title link]





earthquakes

The Big One is Coming - More Details on EQs

Quakes can be triggered from other side of globe: study

May 25 01:33 PM US/Eastern

A major quake such as the one that left at least 60,000 dead in southwestern China this month can trigger other earthquakes half way around the world, according to a study released Sunday.
This unexpected finding could one day help make better predictions about the frequency and intensity of aftershocks, the lead researcher told AFP.

A team of geologists in the United States found that 12 out of 15 major quakes -- registering a magnitude of 7.0 or higher -- since 1990 generated surface waves that set off smaller seismic events in fault systems on distant continents.

The China quake, which measured 8.0 on the Richter scale, was not included in the study, which was published in the British journal Nature Geoscience.

*************************************************

So, if this is true, what fault will the China quake set off, that it has not, at this time, activated??

The Big One is Coming - Details

(watch out Malibu - big waves forecast when it hits)


Calif. quake scientists detail impact of 'Big One'

By ALICIA CHANG, The Associated Press
2008-05-21

LOS ANGELES - The "Big One," as earthquake scientists imagine it in a detailed, first-of-its-kind script, unzips California's mighty San Andreas Fault north of the Mexican border. In less than two minutes, Los Angeles and its sprawling suburbs are shaking like a bowl of jelly.

The jolt from the 7.8-magnitude temblor lasts for three minutes - 15 times longer than the disastrous 1994 Northridge quake.

Water and sewer pipes crack. Power fails. Part of major highways break. Some high-rise steel frame buildings and older concrete and brick structures collapse.

Hospitals are swamped with 50,000 injured as all of Southern California reels from a blow on par with the Sept. 11 attacks and Hurricane Katrina: $200 billion in damage to the economy, and 1,800 dead.

Only about 700 of those people are victims of building collapses. Many others are lost to the 1,600 fires burning across the region - too many for firefighters to tackle at once.

A team of about 300 scientists, governments, first responders and industries worked for more than a year to create a realistic crisis scenario that can be used for preparedness, including a statewide drill planned later this year. Published by the U.S. Geological Survey and California Geological Survey, it is to be released Thursday in Washington, D.C.

Researchers caution that it is not a prediction, but the possibility of a major California quake in the next few decades is very real.

Last month, the USGS reported that the Golden State has a 46 percent chance of a 7.5 or larger quake in the next 30 years, and that such a quake probably would hit Southern California. The Northridge quake, which killed 72 people and caused $25 billion in damage, was much smaller at magnitude 6.7.

"We cannot keep on planning for Northridge," said USGS seismologist Lucy Jones. "The science tells that it's not the worst we're going to face."

USGS geophysicist Kenneth Hudnut said scientists wanted to create a plausible narrative and avoided science fiction like the 2004 TV miniseries "10.5" about an Armageddon quake on the West Coast.

"We didn't want to stretch credibility," said Hudnut. "We didn't want to make it a worst-case scenario, but one that would have major consequences."

The figures are based on the assumption that the state takes no continued action to retrofit flimsy buildings or update emergency plans. The projected loss is far less than the magnitude-7.9 killer that caused more than 40,000 deaths last week in western China, in part because California has stricter building code enforcement and retrofit programs.

The scenario is focused on the San Andreas Fault, the 800-mile boundary where the Pacific and North American plates grind against each other. The fault is the source of some of the largest earthquakes in state history, including the monstrous magnitude-7.8 quake that reduced San Francisco to ashes and killed 3,000 people in 1906.

In imagining the next "Big One," scientists considered the section of the San Andreas loaded with the most stored energy and the most primed to break. Most agree it's the southernmost segment, which has not popped since 1690, when it unleashed an estimated 7.7 jolt.

Scientists chose the parameters of the fictional temblor such as its size and length of rupture and ran computer models to simulate ground movement. Engineers calculated the effects of shaking on freeways, buildings, pipelines and other infrastructure. Risk analysts used the data to estimate casualties and damages.

A real quake would yield different results from the scenario, which excludes possibilities such as fierce Santa Ana winds that could whip fires into infernos.

The scenario: The San Andreas Fault suddenly rumbles to life on Nov. 13, 2008, just after morning rush hour. The quake begins north of the U.S.-Mexican border near the Salton Sea and the fault ruptures for about 200 miles in a northwest direction ending near the high desert town of Palmdale about 40 miles north of downtown Los Angeles.

Scientists chose the scenario because it would create intense shaking in the Los Angeles Basin and neighboring counties - a region with nearly 22 million people.

The scenario will be released at a House Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources meeting in Washington.

Here are the major elements:
-10 a.m.: The San Andreas Fault ruptures, sending shock waves racing at 2 miles per second.
-30 seconds later: The agricultural Coachella Valley shakes first. Older buildings crumble. Fires start. Sections of Interstate 10, one of the nation's major east-west corridors, break apart.
-1 minute later: Interstate 15, a key north-south route, is severed in places. Rail lines break; a train derails. Tremors hit burgeoning Riverside and San Bernardino counties east of Los Angeles.
-1 minute, 30 seconds later: Shock waves advance toward the Los Angeles Basin, shaking it violently for 55 seconds.
-2 minutes later: The rupture stops near Palmdale, but waves march north toward coastal Santa Barbara and into the Central Valley city of Bakersfield.

-30 minutes later: Emergency responders begin to fan across the region. A magnitude-7 aftershock hits, but sends its energy south into Mexico. Several more big aftershocks will hit in following days and months.
Major fires following the quake would cause the most damage, said Keith Porter, of the University of Colorado, Boulder, who studied physical damage for the scenario.

The quake would likely spark 1,600 fires that would destroy 200 million square feet of housing and residential properties worth between $40 billion and $100 billion, according to the scenario.

Once the shaking stops, emergency responders would do a "windshield survey" that involves rolling through neighborhoods to tally damage and identify areas of greatest need, said Larry Collins, captain of the Urban Search & Rescue Task Force at the Los Angeles County Fire Department.

Collins said the scale of the disaster means firefighters would not be able to put out every flame.
"We're going to have to think about out-of-the-box solutions," he said.
---

The Big One is Coming

A recent study suggests we have a 99% chance on any given day (US Geological Survey) of at least a 6.7.

The same study revealed at least a 46% chance of a 7.5 or greater.

Think devastation.

The Northridge (incorrectly labeled) earthquake was a 6.9 (incorrectly registered - should have been listed as 7.0) on a small fault that was limited in scope.

The one that is coming will be a bit more massive in scope on faults not limited to a small stretch in the north valley area.

100% certainty within 30 years. But they have been claiming that since 1970. Yet, all we need do is consider the state of the continental plates. From earthquakes in Indonesia and Japan to Alaska, to volcanoes and quakes in Mexico, to several dozen tiny quakes off the coast of Oregon - what we are left with is pressure built up that MUST be released.

Inevitable. Now - when it happens rescue and rebuilding will be limited. First, an assessment will be taken by local communities. The governor will get involved, the national guard will be called up (and at this time anti-war dimwits will call Bush as responsible for the slow response due to the guard being in Iraq). This will be 24 hours. On day 2, National Guard will be coordinating and Red Cross/Salvation Army forces will be moving in to help. Local police will be on the ground but overwhelmed. Day 3 - guard and resources will now be in the communities with access. Freeways will be down and for those areas that need access via freeways, it will be several more days. Water will be off, electricity will still be off. Day 7 - food and water will be available, Red Cross and Salvation Army centers will be set up. Emergency hospitals will be established. Guard will supplement the police and search and rescue will continue.

DON'T EXPECT IT ANY FASTER THAN THAT. Plan for it. Take care of yourselves. The government is not able to respond any faster nor should it. We must be able to take care of ourselves for at least 72 hours.