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Earthquakes

ritchiemiller said:
...Particularly interesting is the mention of Charnwood Forest. Those Forteans with long memories may well recall the excellent 2 part article published in The News # 10 in 1975 called Portrait Of A Fault Area which concentrated on that very area.

I haven't read that actual article, but I do recall it being referred to before - I think in a Fortean Times article on earthlight phenomena. It would be interesting to know if there was any other similar activity reported around the time of this event.

ramonmercado said:
Two small earthquakes?

Maybe small - but I've experienced a very modest earthquake myself (during Manchester's earthquake swarm of 2002), and it still felt like a herd of startled cows was stampeding through my loft.
 
I used to live in Oakham in Rutland .. the teens called it Oakham where they poke 'em due to their 'extra bed room activities' .... it also has an ABC legend, Catmose apparently meaning valley of the cat as well as a submerged village at Rutland Water. We felt an earthquake in about '01 which woke us up and felt like a huge lorry passing by ..
 
Swifty said:
We felt an earthquake in about '01 which woke us up and felt like a huge lorry passing by ..

I remember that one. It was dead spooky. I intend to go and have a wander about Rutland Water at the weekend if the weather's nice, and if the earth doesn't split in twain and swallow up the county before then.
 
Water extraction for human use boosts California quakes
By Matt McGrath, Environment correspondent, BBC News

Extracting water for human activities is increasing the number of small earthquakes being triggered in California.
A new study suggests that the heavy use of ground water for pumping and irrigation is causing mountains to lift and valleys to subside.

The scientists say this depletion of the water is increasing seismic activity along the San Andreas fault.
They worry that over time this will hasten the occurrence of large quakes.
The report has been published in the journal Nature.

The San Andreas fault runs for almost 1,300km through the western part of California and marks part of the boundary between the Pacific and North American tectonic plates.
Seismologists have mainly focussed on the movements of these plates as the critical factors in the build up of stress that can lead to large earthquakes, such as the one that destroyed San Francisco in 1906.

This paper looks at another factor - the impacts of humans on the Earth's surface.
The researchers have used the well developed GPS system in the western US to analyse small lifts and dips in the topography of the San Joaquin valley.
San Joaquin is part of California's central valley, one of the most productive farm regions in the US. That productivity is based on access to ground water, extracted and pumped to irrigate crops.
So great is the demand that scientists estimate twice as much water is being consumed as is being returned through rain and snow.

All this extraction is having a significant impact on the shape of the Earth. The floors of the valleys are subsiding, the researchers found, while the surrounding mountains are on the rise.
"We are removing a weight from the Earth's crust and it is responding by flexing upwards and literally moving mountains," lead author Dr Colin Amos told BBC News.
"It seems as though these small stress changes that happen on a yearly basis, are causing more small earthquakes to occur on portions of the fault."

Dr Amos and his colleagues stress that there is a natural pattern to these tiny rises and falls along the mountain ranges - the extraction of water is a small but significant impact that researchers haven't recognised in this area before.
In a commentary on the research, Dr Paul Lundgren from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) says the movement of the mountain serves to unclamp and increase the sliding on the San Andreas fault system.

"There is both a seasonal variation in and long term promotion of seismicity associated with the water extraction," he writes.
"The latter may hasten the occurrence of future large earthquakes in the San Andreas fault system."

In another part of the region along the southern Sierra Nevada mountain range, scientists had believed that the crustal uplift was due to tectonic forces.
This new research indicates that it too is partly a consequence of groundwater depletion.

Dr Amos believes the study shows that we need to think more broadly about the impact of our actions in relation to nature.
"Human activities are changing things that we hadn't appreciated before - its a wake up call to the far reaching implications for the things that we are doing that may affect systems that we didn't know that we could affect."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-27393811
 
11 July 2014 Last updated at 15:14

Earthquake hits Channel Islands

An earthquake of about 4.2 magnitude has been felt in the Channel Islands and south-west England.
Tony Pallot, from the Jersey Met Office, said the epicentre was nine miles (15 km) to the west of Jersey, but was felt across the islands.

A spokesman for the British Geological Survey said it was the largest earthquake in the area since 1933.

BBC Radio Jersey presenter Sara Palmer said she could feel the ground under her feet shake while she was on air.
"I could see the monitors in front of me shake. It was really odd - we all looked wide-eyed at each other," she said.
She happened to be playing Status Quo's song Rocking All Over the World as the earthquake hit. 8)

The tremor registered on British Geological Survey monitoring station equipment in Exeter, Devon.
Mr Pallot said: "It has been felt across the islands. From what we can see it was detected in parts of the UK as well.
"This was a significant tremor for the islands. This is one of the biggest ones we have experienced."

The Durrell Wildlife Trust said animals in the wildlife park reacted to the earthquake.
Gordon Hunt, mammal keeper at Durrell, said: "Something strange with the organgutans, they are all calling in an agitated manner and are clearly upset about something.
"They had been playing up all morning and we thought it was just tension in the group, but they are very agitated now."

Dr Roger Norwich, geologist and Sark resident, said: "It was felt in Sark strongly. There were two quite strong tremors."
However, Sark resident Phyllis thought it was nothing compared to a quake she felt when she was about 11 years old.
She said: "It was just before four o'clock as we were standing up saying prayers as we did in those days.
"It was far worse than anything we've experienced in Sark today. The ground actually moved under my feet.
"Today, we were dozing in our chairs by virtue of our ages - he's 94 and I'm in my 90th year - and we just felt our chairs move, but only fairly slightly."

The police and fire service in the islands said there had been no reports of injuries or damage.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-jersey-28266736
 
Los Angeles awaits earthquake that could be the 'Big One'A mega-quake in America's second most populous city is long overdue, and 50-year-old buildings could come crashing down, killing thousands
By Nick Allen, Los Angeles
4:41PM BST 19 Jul 2014

Next year residents of Los Angeles will flock to cinemas to see a blockbuster called San Andreas in which their city will be wiped out by an apocalyptic earthquake.
Kylie Minogue and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, one of Hollywood's current most bankable stars, will be seen roaming the wreckage after the City of Angels is mercilessly flattened by the "Big One".

As skyscrapers collapse, thousands die and chaos ensues, most of those in the audience will be wondering how long before it happens for real.

The southern section of the San Andreas fault that runs near the city has not had a "mega-quake" of more than magnitude-7.5 since 1680 and it is, according to seismologists, more than a century overdue.
A flurry of lesser earthquakes in recent months has refocused attention on whether America's second city can withstand a major hit.
In the first five months of this year there were five quakes of more than magnitude 4.0, the first time that has happened since 1994, sending jitters through the city.

"A big earthquake is inevitable," Los Angeles' recently appointed "quake tsar" Dr Lucy Jones, told The Telegraph. "Each earthquake that happens increases the probability. We know a lot about earthquakes, we know it will happen. We know everything but the time." ;)

It is not unlikely that Dr Jones, 59, a US Geological Survey seismologist, may herself feature as a character in San Andreas, the movie.
Universally known as the "Earthquake Lady" she rose to fame 20 years ago following the 6.7-magnitude Northridge earthquake , which killed 57 people and caused $20 billion in damage.
In the 1990s she once appeared before TV cameras holding her one-year-old son and successfully calmed a panicking city. Her informative tweets are now avidly followed by fretting Angelinos.

After persuading her to take on the lead role in preparing for the "Big One" the city's Mayor Eric Garcetti said: "If I had to create an expert out of clay, I couldn't have done better."

But Dr Jones is worried. And when she worries, everyone else should. What is particularly keeping her up at night is the number of old concrete buildings that have not been retrofitted and could topple, or collapse inwardly into a pancake. The expensive retrofitting process involves reinforcing buildings, for example with steel braces.

"LA was built in the 50s and 60s and all of the buildings from that time have some real problems," she said. Dr Jones herself would never live in one.
According to a recent study by the University of California there are 1,451 concrete buildings that have not been retrofitted, including about 50 hotels, 50 churches, and 25 nursing homes.
It has been estimated that 5 per cent of these, about 75 in total, would collapse in a large earthquake, but it cannot be predicted which ones.

etc...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... g-One.html
 
Earthquake hits Penryn Er, wow... :rolleyes:
Thursday 28 January 2016 / Cornwall News

An earthquake of magnitude 0.8 hit Penryn last night according to the British Geological Survey.

The quake hit just before 11.30pm at a depth of 1km, at grid reference 50.164 -5.120 - on Kernick Industrial Estate.

Jamie Reed wrote on the Facebook group Falmouth and Penryn Problem Page: "Did anyone feel or hear a massive rumble at around 11.30 this evening? That was weird."

http://www.falmouthpacket.co.uk/news/cornwall_news/14238346.Earthquake_hits_Penryn/?ref=rss
 
West Briton version:

"IT HAS been confirmed that a very loud rumble felt from Falmouth to Helston last night was an earthquake.
A 0.8 magnitude earthquake was recorded in Penryn near to the Thirsty Scholar Free House, with residents having heard and felt vibrations in Helston, Rame, Falmouth, Budock Water, Longdowns and Stithians.
It is said to have lasted between two and three seconds and made houses shake in the process.

The earthquake struck at 11:28pm at a recorded depth of 1km and proved to be a hot topic on social media with several people at the time at a loss to explain the source of the rumble."

http://www.westbriton.co.uk/Earthquake-strikes-Penryn/story-28624822-detail/story.html#1

The positions given by the two papers are about a kilometre apart!
 
Did you notice it at all, Rynner?
 
Uh oh!!
Windows shake as second earthquake strikes Cornwall
By WBHuw | Posted: February 02, 2016

An earthquake has been detected between Falmouth and Helston - the second earthquake to strike Cornwall in the past week.

Kim Kimber, who lives just outside of Falmouth, felt the earthquake shortly after midday today.
She said: "Initially thought it might be thunder but not enough cloud felt wrong too. Whole house shook windows rattling felt the vibration through the floor.
"If we lived near a quarry I might have thought they were blasting but nearest live quarry is a couple of miles away!"

A spokesperson for the British Geological Survey confirmed that they had picked up a signal from the area at 12.04pm and it looked like an earthquake.
The data will be analysed and the strength of the earthquake will be determined.

http://www.westbriton.co.uk/Windows...kes-Cornwall/story-28653841-detail/story.html

It's the end of th' world, I tell ee!
 
Cornwall hit by 2.3 magnitude earthquake at Liskeard
By cg_graham | Posted: October 27, 2016

Cornwall has been struck by a 2.3 magnitude earthquake, with the centre of the quake at Liskeard.
There are no reports of any damage this morning.

Kirstin Lemon, of the British Geological Survey, said the quake of this size was unusual for Cornwall adding that scientists hoped to have more details soon.

Dozens of people are now comparing their experience of the earthquake on our Facebook pages. Nanny Kay wrote: "Heard the rumble in Newquay but didn't feel any movement although things in the kitchen started making noises just after."

etc...

http://www.cornishguardian.co.uk/co...-at-liskeard/story-29846002-detail/story.html

A 2.3-magnitude earthquake shakes Cornwall
27 October 2016

People living as far as 20 miles from the epicentre on Bodmin Moor reported being woken up by the tremor which hit at about 03:00 BST
A 2.3-magnitude earthquake has been felt in Cornwall.

People living as far as 20 miles from the epicentre on Bodmin Moor reported being woken up by the tremor which hit at about 03:00 BST.

The quake is not reported to have caused any damage or injuries.

The British Geological Survey said it was the largest earthquake in the area since 2011 and was one of about 12 tremors of a similar size that happen annually in the UK.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-37791494

It sounds like the BGS needs to get its act together!! Was the epicentre at Liskeard or Bodmin Moor, or somewhere in between? Brown Willy, the highest point of the moor, is about 11 miles NW of Liskeard.

EDIT: The BGS website says:
LISKEARD,CORNWALL
Summary

DATE 27/10/2016
ORIGIN TIME 02:08:29.5 UTC
LOCATION 50.510 -4.533
DEPTH 11 km
MAGNITUDE 2.3
LOCALITY LISKEARD,CORNWALL

Felt Liskeard, Bodmin, St Breward, Doublebois, Polperro, Treveighan, Henwood, Lanreath, Haynes, St Mabyn, St Teath, Par, Helstone & Wadebridge, Cornwall.

http://earthquakes.bgs.ac.uk/earthquakes/recent_events/20161027020555.html#page=summary
 
Last edited:
"Was the epicentre at Liskeard or Bodmin Moor, or somewhere in between?"
The answer seems to be somewhere in between!

Another report says:

An earthquake that struck South East Cornwall in the early hours of yesterday morning was the largest in the area since February 4 2011 experts have revealed.

The 2.3 magnitude earthquake struck seven kilometres north-west of Liskeard, and scores of people living nearby took to social media claiming to have heard noises and felt tremors.

Kirstin Lemon, of the British Geological Survey, has since released detailed information about the quake.

A statement read: "A small number of reports have been received by members of the public in the Bodmin Moor area of Cornwall approximately 7km north-west of Liskeard. Loud rumbling followed by a slight vibration then the sound faded. Seemed to be travelling south to north."

...

There are approximately 10-12 earthquakes of a similar size in the UK annually, but the Liskeard quake ranked as 750,000 times smaller than yesterday's earthquake in Italy and no damage was inflicted as a result.

http://www.westbriton.co.uk/liskear...-say-experts/story-29847217-detail/story.html
 
This does surprise me...
Earthquake list names Cornwall village of Gweek in top 10 UK hotspots
By G_WIlkinson | Posted: April 26, 2017

A new study of figures dating back to the 1970s has revealed for the first time Cornwall's most prone earthquake hotspot.

It is, err, the peaceful village of Gweek and the area around Port Navas on the picturesque Helford River.

According to the data, there have been a whole series of earthquakes recorded around Porth Navas, in an area stretching from Gweek, up to Constantine and across to Helford Passage. The zone outstripped anywhere else this side of Bridgwater.

Specialist mapping company Esri UK has now plotted all the recorded quakes on a new interactive map, which can be seen here.
The last earthquake rumble felt in Cornwall was in the Launceston area in October last year, when residents reported being woken at 3am.

Ben Flanagan, of mapmakers Esri UK, told HuffPost UK they wanted to see if they could plot all the registered earthquakes to spot any patterns in the UK. He said they used data from the British Geological Survey to look at 10 possible hotspots.

Rather incredibly for Cornwall, it emerged that the Port Navas/Gweek area was one of the areas picked out by the researchers.
The hotspots are listed as:

  • Edinburgh (Scotland)
  • Gweek, Cornwall (England)
  • Clackmannan (Scotland)
  • Llyn Peninsula (Wales)
  • Stoke-on-Trent (England)
  • Mansfield (England)
  • Manchester (England)
  • Knoydart Peninsula (Scotland)
  • Dumfries (Scotland)
  • Blackpool (England)
There are between 200 and 300 earthquakes detected in the UK each year and around 10,000 since 1970. It goes without saying that nearly all of them are too faint to be noticed by us and the UK remains, geographically speaking, a stable place to live.

http://www.cornwalllive.com/earthqu...-uk-hotspots/story-30296805-detail/story.html

Gweek and Porth Navas are several miles apart, and the centre shown on the map is in between them, at the head of little-known Polpenwith Creek. I suppose 'Gweek' is quicker to write!
 
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Strange seismic waves that rippled around world leave scientists bewildered

'I don't think I've seen anything like it,' seismologist says

Just before 9.30am on Sunday 11 November, a series of unusual seismic pulses rippled around the world almost undetected.
The waves rang for over 20 minutes, emanating about 15 miles off the shores of Mayotte - a tiny island in the Indian Ocean between Madagascar and Africa.

From here, they reverberated across Africa, setting off geological sensors in Zambia, Kenya, and Ethiopia.

They crossed the Atlantic, and were picked up in Chile, New Zealand, Canada, and even Hawaii nearly 11,000 miles away, the National Geographic reports.

Despite their huge range, the waves were apparently not felt by anybody. However, one person monitoring the US Geological Survey’s live stream of seismogram displays did notice the unusual waveform and posted it to Twitter, sparking the interest of other geologists and earthquake enthusiasts.

Twitter user @matarikipax posted the waveforms, describing it in the first instance as “a most odd and unusual seismic signal”.

It was not only the power of the seismic waves which puzzled scientists when they began to examine the readings, but also the curiously regular shape of the waveform.

In a typical earthquake, the rapid crash of a tectonic plate movement sends out what is known as a “wave train”, composed of several types of waves moving at different speeds from the epicentre of the quake.

Seismographs measure the fastest waves first (the primary or P waves), which arrive in an abrupt cluster, then the secondary (S waves), and finally, rumbling along later, come slower low-frequency surface waves. In a powerful quake, these can move across the surface of the planet several times.

The wave pattern seen on 11 November resembled these slow-moving waveforms usually seen following large earthquakes - only, in this case, there had not been a perceptible earthquake.

The bizarre waveform is what scientists call “monochromatic”. Earthquakes normally produce waves of so many different frequencies, the wave readings appear more jumbled.

But the mystery waveform from Mayotte was a crisp zigzag, which repeated after steady 17-second intervals.

“They're too nice. They're too perfect to be nature,” joked the University of Glasgow’s Helen Robinson, who is study for a PhD in applied volcanology.

Speaking to the National Geographic, she added the location of the island means industrial sources for the unusual wave - such as oil drilling or from wind farms - could be ruled out.


https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...ascar-volcanic-activity-science-a8659236.html
 
Do they frack in Alaska, out of interest?
 
I suggest we start building giant robots, just in case of a Pacific Rim scenario.

I think this is an excellent idea. We could also secretly get the guys at Porton Down to create a gigantic flamethrowing moth to spread horrific chaos throughout europe. This would be a far better and much more entertaining use of our science money rather than building another GPS satellite system once we’re locked out of the old one. Who needs HS2 anyway?
 
Do they frack in Alaska, out of interest?

Yes ... Hydraulic fracturing has been used on the North Slope since the 1980's.

There's little chance the recent magnitude 7.0 quake had anything to do with fracking. The estimated depth of its 'slip' was on the order of 42 - 44 km beneath the surface.
 
Yes ... Hydraulic fracturing has been used on the North Slope since the 1980's.

There's little chance the recent magnitude 7.0 quake had anything to do with fracking. The estimated depth of its 'slip' was on the order of 42 - 44 km beneath the surface.

Fair enough, thanks. Just a freak occurrence, then?
 
Yes ... Hydraulic fracturing has been used on the North Slope since the 1980's.

There's little chance the recent magnitude 7.0 quake had anything to do with fracking. The estimated depth of its 'slip' was on the order of 42 - 44 km beneath the surface.
I heard that it was a magma cavity or something like that...on a huge scale.
 
Fair enough, thanks. Just a freak occurrence, then?

The earthquake? Just a natural occurrence when sitting atop an active plate subduction zone.
 
So normal for Alaska? The way it was reported, this was the first time it had ever happened, near enough.

Earthquakes are relatively common along the southern Alaska coast. The 1964 magnitude 9 quake (strongest *measured* quake in US history) occurred in the same (Anchorage) area.
 
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