The following Channel 4 (UK) documentary captures the dreadful moments when a devastating tsunami washed away a quarter of a million people in the Indian Ocean in December 2004.
Earth Changes
© USGS
Wednesday, April 11, 2012 at 22:55:16 UTC
Wednesday, April 11, 2012 at 05:55:16 PM at epicenter
Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones
Location:
18.390°N, 102.652°W
Depth:
65.6 km (40.8 miles)
Region:
MICHOACAN, MEXICO
Distances:
69 km (42 miles) NW of Lazaro Cardenas, Michoacan, Mexico
129 km (80 miles) SSW of Uruapan, Michoacan, Mexico
143 km (88 miles) NW of Zihuatanejo, Guerrero, Mexico
384 km (238 miles) WSW of MEXICO CITY, D.F., Mexico
© Matt Stroshane/Getty Images
Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, left , and Walt Cunningham, Apollo 7 astronaut, in front of the Apollo 14 capsule at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Cunningham has signed a letter demanding that NASA stop endorsing global warming.
Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, left , and Walt Cunningham, Apollo 7 astronaut, in front of the Apollo 14 capsule at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Cunningham has signed a letter demanding that NASA stop endorsing global warming.
Challenging statements from NASA that man is causing climate change, the former NASA executives demanded in a letter to Administrator Charles Bolden that he and the agency "refrain from including unproven remarks" supporting global warming in the media.
"We feel that NASA's advocacy of an extreme position, prior to a
thorough study of the possible overwhelming impact of natural climate
drivers is inappropriate," they wrote. "At risk is damage to the
exemplary reputation of NASA, NASA's current or former scientists and
employees, and even the reputation of science itself."
© USGS
The red star marks where the quake hit.
The red star marks where the quake hit.
However, this earthquake, which struck at 2:38 p.m. local time (4:38 a.m. ET), about 270 miles (435 kilometers) off the coast of the Indonesian island was a different animal altogether than the 2004 earthquake and tsunami, which killed more than 230,000 people and left millions homeless.
"It was quite a bit smaller," said Julie Dutton, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey. The 2004 quake was a magnitude 9.1 - the third most powerful earthquake ever recorded.
Perhaps more significantly, today's earthquake was a different kind of quake all together. Instead of occurring at a plate boundary along an area called a subduction zone, where one tectonic plate is diving beneath another, this earthquake occurred in the middle of an oceanic plate, where the faults in the crust essentially moved from side to side instead of up and down. These sorts of events are called strike-slip earthquakes.
"With a strike-slip event you don't have the same potential hazard for a tsunami as you do with a subduction event because the plates are moving adjacent to each other," Dutton told OurAmazingPlanet.
© AGS
Many of these earthquakes (magnitude ca. 1.6) occurred near Lake Mead. These are attributed to mining and quarrying, and also to crustal adjustments to water going into and out of the lake. The strongest earthquakes (magnitude ca. 3.6) occurred near Clarkdale in the central part of the state. The Survey says that these events are consistent with past behavior: "a propensity for deeper seismicity to occur in two pockets, the northwestern Utah-Arizona border and well within the Colorado Plateau in the northeast corner of the state" and "the highest concentration of energy release correlates well with the pattern of established Quaternary faulting, indicating that this portion of the crust continues to be an active area of strain release and of particular interest for hazard studies in Arizona." The strain is due to on-going crustal extension.
© USGS
Wednesday, April 11, 2012 at 08:38:37 UTC
Wednesday, April 11, 2012 at 02:38:37 PM at epicenter
Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones
Location:
2.311°N, 93.063°E
Depth:
22.9 km (14.2 miles)
Region:
OFF THE WEST COAST OF NORTHERN SUMATRA
Distances:
434 km (269 miles) SW of Banda Aceh, Sumatra, Indonesia
550 km (341 miles) SW of Lhokseumawe, Sumatra, Indonesia
963 km (598 miles) W of KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia
1797 km (1116 miles) WNW of JAKARTA, Java, Indonesia
An earthquake with an initial magnitude of 8.9 has struck under the sea off Indonesia's northern Aceh province.
The quake triggered a tsunami warning across the Indian Ocean region.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said it was not yet known whether a tsunami had been generated, but advised authorities to "take appropriate action".
The region is regularly hit by earthquakes. The Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 killed 170,000 people in Aceh.
The US Geological Survey, which documents quakes worldwide, said the Aceh quake was centred 33km (20 miles) under the sea about 495km from Banda Aceh, the provincial capital.
It was initially reported as 8.9 magnitude but was later revised down to 8.7 by the USGS.
The tsunami warning said quakes of such a magnitude "have the potential to generate a widespread destructive tsunami that can affect coastlines across the entire Indian Ocean basin".
The quake triggered a tsunami warning across the Indian Ocean region.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said it was not yet known whether a tsunami had been generated, but advised authorities to "take appropriate action".
The region is regularly hit by earthquakes. The Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 killed 170,000 people in Aceh.
The US Geological Survey, which documents quakes worldwide, said the Aceh quake was centred 33km (20 miles) under the sea about 495km from Banda Aceh, the provincial capital.
It was initially reported as 8.9 magnitude but was later revised down to 8.7 by the USGS.
The tsunami warning said quakes of such a magnitude "have the potential to generate a widespread destructive tsunami that can affect coastlines across the entire Indian Ocean basin".
Kevin Kamps, Beyond Nuclear, joins Thom Hartmann. California beware! A radioactive wave is headed toward the West Coast of the United States courtesy of the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
KAMPS: And that plume, as you said, it's taken a year but it has now hit Hawaii. Another year from now it'll probably reach the West Coast of the US.
© ESA
The Strait of Gibraltar, which lies between the southern coast of Spain and the northern coast of Morocco, is the only place where water from the Atlantic Ocean mixes with water from the Mediterranean Sea.
The Strait of Gibraltar, which lies between the southern coast of Spain and the northern coast of Morocco, is the only place where water from the Atlantic Ocean mixes with water from the Mediterranean Sea.
More than 250 years later, geologists are still piecing together the tectonic story behind that powerful earthquake. A unique subduction zone beneath Gibraltar, the southernmost tip of the Iberian Peninsula, now seems to be culprit. Subduction zones are the spots where one of Earth's tectonic plates dives beneath another, often producing some of the world's strongest earthquakes.
"At a global scale, subduction is the only process that produces magnitude-8 or -9 earthquakes," said Marc-Andre Gutscher, a geologist at the University of Brest in France. "If subduction occurred, and is still occurring here, then it's highly relevant to understanding the region's seismic hazards."
© Unknown
The Prahovei Valley, the week-end destination for many tourists from Bucharest also has a small layer of snow, in mountain resorts like Azuga, Buşteni and Sinaia.
