Saturday, March 10, 2018

Increase in Intense Earthquakes


I have an earthquake ap that has been very active with alerts over the last couple of months. especially in Papua New Guinea.

Today at the Asahi Shimbun I saw that a volcano in Kyushu, the Japanese island wracked with earthquakes over the last year or so, is now actively spewing ash, as you can see here http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201803070034.html

All of this geological activity made me wonder whether actual activity is up, or conversely whether the global reporting of activity simply makes the earthquake and volcanic events seem more frequent when in fact incidents are comparable with historical means.

I googled the question and found a top result in the Guardian predicting that intense earthquake activity is likely to increase this year because of a minuscule decrease in the speed of earth's rotation:
Upsurge in big earthquakes predicted for 2018 as Earth rotation slows. (2017, November 18). The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/18/2018-set-to-be-year-of-big-earthquakes
The link between Earth’s rotation and seismic activity was highlighted last month in a paper by Roger Bilham of the University of Colorado in Boulder and Rebecca Bendick of the University of Montana in Missoula presented at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America.

“The correlation between Earth’s rotation and earthquake activity is strong and suggests there is going to be an increase in numbers of intense earthquakes next year,” Bilham told the Observer last week.
The study discussed in The Guardian addressed frequency of magnitude 7 earthquakes and larger over the last 100 years. The researchers identified five periods characterized by higher than average numbers of earthquakes compared to other periods. These high-earthquake periods coincided with a very small decrease in the speed of the earth's rotation.

While the average rate of large earthquakes was 15 a year, distinct periods emerged in the study's retroactive analysis wherein earthquakes 7 magnitude and larger averaged between 25-30 a year.

These periods of intense earthquakes correlated with periods during which the earth's rotations slowed. You can read the study here:
R. Bendick & R. Bilhman (2017). Do weak global stresses synchronize earthquakes? Geophysical Research Letters, 44, 8320–8327, doi:10.1002/2017GL074934.Available http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2017GL074934/epdf?referrer_access_token=t_rnCMRPadlB6gC7EHPIpE4keas67K9QMdWULTWMo8OSvAsLEBfxHKk77yB6SFsJHcErrW6SWPzKuSQjVujLi_Iu4GpW3LHc8e988DzDvEc-5E-nIM3hd0BI_0wog1sqONPw4hESQbRWop_lp7uQIgnbyKSopgnVaTKA48pyb2loNaNvz5EhpaiaHa2Fika5y95LACwWxR1bRsY2kk1M28Z5UDXQzBIm5LA2OqOH6AgAaUJkgp-ft-MgShwLZYo3CqlsD39UFGaJgJHedip0bQ%3D%3D

More intense earthquakes spell doom for aging energy infrastructures, especially nuclear plants.

Looking at the most recent earthquake activity in this seismic monitoring map here - http://ds.iris.edu/seismon/ - I see that the entire Pacific ring of fire seems active, except for the North American coastal region.  I hope that doesn't mean pressure is building in that area.

Aging nuclear plants will not withstand significant geological activity.

We need to close them down now while see still can.


3 comments:

  1. Apparently both earthquakes and volcanic activity increase during a Grand Solar Minimum. There are a number of interesting videos available on this on YouTube by very knowledgeable persons. During a solar minimum the solar wind decreases and even more so during a Grand Solar Minimum which occurs every 206 years. It is also worth studying the Milankovitch cycles. Ultimately this is a very complex matter for which computers are very handy.

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  2. There are a couple of nasty old GE reactors, in Vera Cruz Mexico, that are very vulnerable. Many large earthquakes in that region lately. The dumn asses that run the reactors , will not turn them of temporarily. Not for a major incoming hurricane. Not for a major earthquake to assess damage. The dumn asses are like all nucleoapes, like putin, trump, abe psychotic bastards, who do about people or living things.

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  3. https://survivingmexico.com/tag/nuclear-plant-in-mexico/

    Vera cruz reactors have had accidents, problems with nuclear waste

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