Tech | April 11, 2011 | 35 comments

USGS Breaking News: Magnitude 7.1 Earthquake Strikes Northeastern Coast of Japan

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EthicalVegan
Magnitude 7.1 earthquake strikes northeastern coast of Japan, U.S. Geological Survey reports.

updated 4:30 a.m.EDT, Mon April 11, 2011
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35 comments // USGS Breaking News: Magnitude 7.1 Earthquake Strikes Northeastern Coast of Japan

  • Gravity_Man
    • 0
      Gravity_Man  

    • The entire population of Japan by now has PTSD and additional severe bouts of depression. Absorbing radiation will make it worse. I would realistically expect a resulting very high suicide rate.

      Not having food and water just puts icing on that cake. Not having any escape ditto. They should probably mass evacuate to America as many as can til the area decides what it's going to do.

    • 1 year ago
  • simplecj
    • +1
      simplecj  

    • This is going to keep happening for months to come... just saying, get used to it. The US might be in store for it's own "big one" sometime soon...

    • 1 year ago
  • ArchDruid
  • simplecj
    • +1
      simplecj  
    • ArchDruid:

      I'm not being insensitive by realizing the reality of the situation.

      Earth moves, that is a fact... moving earth, coming to a fault near you! I happen to live on a fault that is past due, in fact most of the fault lines that run right through the middle of our state are past due and let me tell you, we are not nearly as prepared as the people in Japan. There will be massive loss of life if a big one hits here, no doubt about it. That's reality, get used to it!

    • 1 year ago
  • royulery
  • simplecj
  • simplecj
    • +1
      simplecj  

    • This isn't a new quake, it's the same 7.1 or 7.4 one (depending on your source) that struck last Thursday. Seems the article was updated which brought it to the top of my RSS News feed. I thought it was another one too, but it is not, same one from four days ago. USGS is not showing any recent activity over 6.6...

    • 1 year ago
  • ArchDruid
  • simplecj
  • ArchDruid
  • simplecj
    • +1
      simplecj  
    • Image
    • ArchDruid:

      Well since the post is titled "USGS Breaking News: Magnitude 7.1 Earthquake Strikes Northeastern Coast of Japan" and USGS isn't showing anything corresponding to the main post.... I don't know what to say other than I thought you were misreading old information.

      I did scroll down now and found the link your talking about, but it looks like it's approximately in the location of the 6.6 mag reported by USGS. Sorry I missed those links, but I don't usually read through all the posts if the initial post seems to be in error. You didn't even include a link on the main post and the title doesn't mesh with info actually from USGS. What was I supposed to think?

      Did find this on the BBC just now: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-13032122

      Just a thought... maybe fix the title since USGS shows no such quake? And perhaps a link on the main post to something relevant?

    • 1 year ago
  • damush
  • PoliticalAmazon
  • coolplanet
  • simplecj
    • +1
      simplecj  
    • PoliticalAmazon:

      They're all aftershocks and earthquakes in their own right. I read an article that said after an earthquake of such magnitude as the 9.0 one, will have "aftershocks" that will last years and possibly even longer than a decade. The frequency of these aftershocks will of course gradually decrease until they are months or years apart, but will still "technically" be aftershocks from the big one. The article even said some aftershocks could possibly exceed 8.0 mag.

    • 1 year ago
  • royulery
    • 0
      royulery  
    • PoliticalAmazon:

      the difference can sometimes be debated, ad nauseum. after shocks are readjustments of stress from an earth quake and have smaller magnitude (?). to define a shock takes a lot of informed consideration.

    • 1 year ago
  • royulery
    • +1
      royulery  

    • this is what will happen when the "big one" hits california. when the san andres fault slips some 10 to 15 feet, the mountain ranges which are under pressure to rise, after a short time, will. this isostatic adjustment happens to new mountain ranges to balance out the material lost due to erosion.

    • 1 year ago
  • Jake_Leonard
    • +1
      Jake_Leonard  
    • royulery:

      It is my amateur understanding that the San Andreas fault is a transform continental plate boundary: two plates rubbing parallel to each other. There is no mountain buckling/building, volcano building, and thus subduction involved. The potential energy it builds up through elasticity creates very powerful earthquakes, but that's it, right?

    • 1 year ago
  • PoliticalAmazon
    • 0
      PoliticalAmazon  
    • Image
    • royulery:

      Well, sonofagun, you made me look.

      After dusting off my old college geology textbook to make sure I remembered it correctly, I was actually pretty close.

      San Andreas is considered a classic strike-slip fault where pressure is released by plates sliding past each other.

      If you look at the image with this post, that is of the San Andreas Fault at Crystal Lake. It is remarkable when viewed from the air because the valley it creates is so remarkably straight--thanks to the two plates sliding past each other.

      There is a subduction zone in California: the Cascadia suduction zone.

      The San Andreas ends at an area, off the coast of Mendocino, called "the Triple Junction," where the American Plate, Pacific Plate, and Gorda Plate meet. This area is part of the Cascadia subduction zone which--as the name implies--is a subduction fault (the kind where one plate slips under another plate).

      Earthquakes above the San Andreas actually have the potential to be larger because of the Cascadia subduction zone.

      Estimates are that a 9.0 or so occurs ever 300 to 600 years, and produces considerable change of the landscape.

    • 1 year ago
  • royulery
    • +2
      royulery  
    • Jake_Leonard:

      that's right, mountain building on the san andres has all but ceased but there is residual pressure beneath the mountains from when there was a subduction zone on the western coast. when america broke off europe it bull dozed west folding up islands and beaches into mountains until it over rode the pacific plate and got stuck. the old subduction zone is still there but inactive(?) as the plate boundary shifted to a slip fault 11 million years ago ( recent event).
      i try to explain geology in the most general way so that a concept comes through without losing most readers.

    • 1 year ago
  • Jake_Leonard
  • royulery
    • 0
      royulery  
    • Jake_Leonard:

      really, your hard work will really pay off when, after a lot of memorizing, you will get the "big picture" presentations. on many occasions i've had my mind blown at these lectures and sometimes my classes would erupt in cheers and applause. if your in california, the field trips will be one surprise after another. on one trip i found the foot of an early american 3 toed horse, a trilobite, a 2 billion year old stromatolite and 2 friendly co-eds in my tent.

    • 1 year ago
  • Gravity_Man
    • -4
      Gravity_Man  

    • OK everybody it's just a quake continue rebuilding money is no object. Let's not quibble over fiat money expenditures. Crank up the Federal Reserve printers it gives a few good men a good-paying job to apply ink to paper so we can know everything's going as well as it did 200 years ago.

    • 1 year ago
  • ArchDruid
  • PoliticalAmazon
  • ArchDruid
  • PoliticalAmazon
    • -2
      PoliticalAmazon  
    • ArchDruid:

      ARCHDRUID SAYETH: "...The children under 5 years are not so aware what is happening. The disaster recovery period will be about 10 years. Children who are currently 10 years-old will become of age by then...."

      --------

      Ach du lieber. I cannot imagine having to go through puberty and adolescence in post-earthquake/tsunami Japan. Talk about a world turned upside down...again, and again, and again.

    • 1 year ago
  • alexandrek
  • Gravity_Man
    • -2
      Gravity_Man  
    • alexandrek:

      Chain Reaction earthquakes are a terrible thing ta waste. No, Wait! I didn't mean that! Japan is in a natural quake zone nothing to see here folks, Move Along.

      Matthew Chap. 24 isn't happening => it's just Better News Reporting (Fox).

    • 1 year ago
  • Gravity_Man
  • alexandrek
  • Gravity_Man
  • EthicalVegan
    • +1
      EthicalVegan  

    • Magnitude 7.1-quake jolts Japan coast
      By the CNN Wire Staff
      April 11, 2011 4:58 a.m. EDT

      STORY HIGHLIGHTS

      A tsunami warning is issued for several prefectures
      Workers at the Fukushima Daiichi plant are asked to evacuate

      (CNN) -- A magnitude 7.1 earthquake rattled the northeastern coast of Japan Monday evening, the U.S. Geological Survey reported.

      Japan's Meteorological Agency issued a tsunami warning, predicting a potential wave of two-meters in Miyagi, Fukushima and Chiba and Ibaraki prefectures.

      The quake was centered about 164 kilometers (101 miles) northeast of Tokyo, according to the USGS. Residents in Tokyo felt the jolts.

      Workers at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant were asked to evacuate.

    • 1 year ago
  • EthicalVegan
  • EthicalVegan
    • +2
      EthicalVegan  
    • Image

    • http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_JAPAN_EARTHQUAKE?SITE=OKPON&SECTIO...

      Apr 11, 4:31 AM EDT

      Japan rattled by another 7.1-magnitude aftershock, warning for tsunami issued

      By ERIC TALMADGE and TOMOKO A. HOSAKA
      Associated Press

      Japan rattled by another 7.1-magnitude aftershock, warning for tsunami issued

      SENDAI, Japan (AP) -- A magnitude-7.1 aftershock has rattled Japan on the one-month anniversary of a massive earthquake that spawned a deadly tsunami.

      A warning has been issued for a 3-foot (1-meter) tsunami, the same as after another 7.1 aftershock that shook the northeast coast last week. There was no tsunami after that quake.

      People at a large electronics store in central Sendai screamed and ran outside, though the shaking made it hard to move around. Mothers grabbed their children, and windows shook. After a minute or two, people returned to the store.

      THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

      FUKUSHIMA, Japan (AP) - Sirens wailed and people bowed their heads and wept along Japan's devastated northeast coast Monday as they marked a month since the tsunami that killed up to 25,000 people and unleashed a persistent nuclear crisis.

      The tsunami-flooded Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant is still leaking radiation after its cooling systems were knocked out by the tsunami, and the government Monday urged even more people living around the complex to leave within a month, citing concerns about long-term health risks from radiation as the crisis wears on.

      People living within 12 miles (20 kilometers) already have been ordered to leave because of concerns about radiation in the air. Other people farther out had been advised to stay indoors.

      Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said Monday that residents of five more communities, some more than 20 miles (30 kilometers) from the plant, are being urged to leave because of high levels of radiation.

      "This is not an emergency measure that people have to evacuate immediately," Edano said. "We have decided this measure based on long-term health risks."

      It was one more reminder of how long it could take to resolve the nuclear crisis. With that still ongoing, thousands of bodies yet to be found and more than 150,000 people living in shelters, there was little time Monday for reflection on Japan's worst disaster since World War II.

      "My chest has been ripped open by the suffering and pain that this disaster has caused the people of our prefecture," said Yuhei Sato, the governor of Fukushima, which saw its coastal areas devastated by the tsunami and contains the damaged plant at the center of the nuclear crisis. "I have no words to express my sorrow."

      People in hard-hit towns gathered for ceremonies at 2:46 p.m., the exact moment of the magnitude-9.0 quake that spawned the tsunami March 11.

      In a devastated coastal neighborhood in the city of Natori, three dozen firemen and soldiers removed their hats and helmets and joined hands atop a small hill that has become a memorial for the dead. Earlier, four monks in pointed hats rang a prayer bell there as they chanted for those killed.

      The noisy clatter of construction equipment ceased briefly as crane operators stood outside their vehicles and bowed their heads.

    • 1 year ago
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