Earthquakes
S


Seismograph

Shallow 6.4 magnitude earthquake southwest of Fiji

nnnnnnn
An earthquake of 6.4 magnitude struck the Suva in Fiji during the early hours of Wednesday (local time), the National Center for Seismology (NCS) reported.

The depth of the earthquake was measured at 10 km and the epicentre was 591 km South-West of Suva in Fiji.

"Earthquake of Magnitude: 6.4, Occurred on 27-03-2024, 06:58:17 IST, Lat: -21.21 & Long: 173.85, Depth: 10 Km, Location: 591km SW of Suva, Fiji," said the NCS in a post on X.

The National Center for Seismology (NCS) is the nodal agency of the Government of India for monitoring earthquake activity.

No casualties have been reported so far. Further details are awaited.

Seismograph

6.9 magnitude earthquake jolts Papua New Guinea - at least three people killed (UPDATE)

mmmmm
An earthquake of 6.9 magnitude struck a remote part of northern Papua New Guinea in early hours of Sunday (local time), the United States Geological Survey (USGS) reported.

The depth of the earthquake was measured at 35 km and the epicentre was 32 km east-north-east of the small settlement of Ambunti.

No casualties have been reported so far. Further details are awaited.

Earthquakes are common in Papua New Guinea, which sits on top of the seismic "Ring of Fire" -- an arc of intense tectonic activity that stretches through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.

A strong earthquake of 7.0 magnitude killed at least seven people in April last year. (ANI)

Comment: Update March 25

Laprensalatina.com reports:
At least three people have died and almost 100 houses collapsed in a magnitude-6.9 earthquake that shook an area in northern Papua New Guinea that was already flooded by recent torrential rain, according to local media on Monday.

According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), which monitors seismic activity around the world, the earthquake occurred on Sunday at 06:22 local time (20:22 GMT Saturday) at a depth of 40 kilometers, about 38 kilometers northeast of the town of Ambunti in the province of East Sepik.

The earthquake caused homes to collapse into flooded rivers and claimed the lives of a woman and her daughter in the village of Jikinumbu, and another child in Sotmeri, both in East Sepik, the Papuan newspaper Post Courier reported on Monday.

It also said the earthquake caused the collapse of some 93 homes, as well as bridges and infrastructure essential in this country rich in resources, but with difficult terrain and with almost 40 percent percent of its 10.5 million population living in poverty.

Defense Minister Billy Joseph said in a statement Sunday night that he was waiting for provincial reports on the impact of the earthquake to decide how best to respond.

"We have serious adverse weather conditions; and all emergency services in our country should be on high alert," said the minister, warning of the dangers at sea and the possibility of landslides occurring in an area already devastated by torrential rains.

It is estimated that some 24 people have died in recent weeks due to flooding and landslides in several mountainous and coastal areas of Papua New Guinea, where overflowing rivers have displaced thousands of people and damaged crops and orchards, and contaminated water sources.

Papua New Guinea sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire, an area of great seismic and volcanic activity that is shaken each year by about 7,000 earthquakes, most of them moderate.



Info

2,000 earthquakes in a day off Canada coast suggest the ocean floor is ripping apart, scientists say

Record earthquake activity off the coast of Vancouver Island hints at the birth of new oceanic crust.
Victoria Harbor on Vancouver Island
© Paul Biris via Getty ImagesVictoria Harbor on Vancouver Island, Canada sits near the Juan de Fuca Ridge, where researchers recently measured nearly 2,000 earthquakes in a single day.

Almost 2,000 earthquakes rocked a spot off the coast of Canada in a single day earlier this month, which could be a sign that new oceanic crust is about to be birthed via a deep sea magmatic rupture.

The quakes aren't any threat to people. They're relatively small and centered on a spot called the Endeavour site, about 150 miles (240 kilometers) off the coast of Vancouver Island. This spot hosts a number of hydrothermal vents and sits on the Juan de Fuca Ridge, where the ocean floor is spreading apart. This area is separate from the subduction zone — a region where one tectonic plate is sinking into the mantle underneath another plate — closer to the coast that can create large, destructive earthquakes, said Zoe Krauss, a doctoral candidate in marine geophysics in the University of Washington.

"Mid-ocean ridges aren't actually capable of producing that large of earthquakes, not too far above a magnitude five," Krauss told Live Science. "This is not going to trigger 'the big one' on the subduction zone."

The quakes are interesting scientifically because they can reveal details about how the ocean floor pulls apart and new crust forms, Krauss said. At the Endeavour site, the Pacific plate and the Juan de Fuca plate are pulling apart. This stretching creates long, linear fault lines and thins the crust, enabling magma to rise up. When the magma reaches the surface, it cools and hardens, becoming new ocean crust.

Seismograph

Shallow 6.4 magnitude earthquake hits off Indonesia's Java island

mmmmmm
A magnitude-6.4 offshore earthquake hit near Indonesia's Java island on Friday, the United States Geological Survey said, with the tremor felt in the capital Jakarta.

The quake had a depth of approximately eight kilometres (five miles), and struck off Java island's northern coast near Bawean island at about 3:52 pm local time (0852 GMT), the USGS said.

There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries, and no tsunami warning was issued by local authorities.

Indonesia, a vast archipelago nation, experiences frequent earthquakes due to its position on the Pacific "Ring of Fire", an arc of intense seismic activity where tectonic plates collide that stretches from Japan through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.

Seismograph

Shallow magnitude 6.0 earthquake - Northern Mid-Atlantic Ridge

MMMMM
EARTHQUAKE DETAILS

Date & time Mar 14, 2024 21:10:25 UTC
Local time at epicenter Thursday, Mar 14, 2024, at 06:10 pm (GMT -3)
Status Confirmed
Magnitude 6.0
Depth 10.0 km
Epicenter latitude / longitude 29.8318°N / 42.6621°WInternational Territory (not near any country)
Seismic antipode 29.8318°S / 137.3379°E Australia
Shaking intensity Strong shaking near epicenter
Felt 7 reports
Primary data source USGS (United States Geological Survey)

Seismograph

6.0 magnitude earthquake hits Papua New Guinea

mmmm
A magnitude 6.0 earthquake hit Papua New Guinea early Thursday, about 65 kilometres southeast of the town of Kimbe, the United States Geological Survey said.

The quake had a depth of approximately 50 kilometres (31 miles), and struck outside Kimbe, in the West New Britain region, at about 1:13 am (1513 GMT Wednesday), the USGS said.

Volcano

Deepsea eruption expected off Vancouver Island after 200 Earthquakes in an hour

Juan de Fuca Ridge
An image of the sea floor at the Endeavour segment of the Juan de Fuca Ridge is shown in a handout photo (The Canadian Press/HO-Ocean Network Canada/Ocean Exploration Trust)
Scientists believe hot magma will erupt under the Pacific Ocean floor in deep waters off Vancouver Island after they detected up to 200 small earthquakes per hour in the area.

They say the expected rupture about five kilometres deep and 260 kilometres off the coast of Tofino, B.C., will be too distant and small to be cause for concern, but offers a unique opportunity to learn more about how the Earth's crust is formed.

Martin Scherwath, a senior scientist with Oceans Networks Canada, says lava could break through anywhere from weeks to a few years from now, offering the first chance for the phenomenon to be captured by the network's suite of underwater instruments.

The magma is estimated to be about 800 degrees Celsius but will cool rapidly when it hits the ocean water.

He says "almost fluid, runny rock" will come out of the sea floor, solidify and quickly turn black, while the heat causes the water around it to fizz.

Mr. Scherwath says he and fellow geophysicists will be watching to see how much of the Earth's crust is formed with one eruption, while biologists will be most interested in how animals respond to any changes.

Comment: Why no one is freaking out about the looming massive earthquake threat in the Pacific Northwest


Seismograph

Strong mag. 6.0 earthquake - Philippine Sea

bbbbbbb
A very strong magnitude 6.0 earthquake occurred under the sea 91 km (57 mi) from North Sulawesi, Philippines, in the afternoon of Friday, Mar 8, 2024 at 5.11 pm local time (GMT +8).

The quake had a moderate depth of 125 km (78 mi) and was felt widely in the area.

No significant damage or impact is expected from this quake and no particular alert was issued.

Seismograph

Shallow 6.1 magnitude earthquake in Macquarie Island region

mmmmm
6.1 magnitude earthquake

UTC time: Tuesday, March 05, 2024 19:52 PM
Your time: Tuesday, March 5, 2024 at 7:52 PM GMT
Magnitude Type: mww
USGS page: M 6.1 - Macquarie Island region
USGS status: Reviewed by a seismologist
Reports from the public: 0 people

10 km depth

Attention

Large ingenous events, cosmic impacts and crises in the history of life

Impact
© Randall Carlson Newsletter - March 2024
Last month, in the February 2024 issue of the Kosmographia Newsletter I reported on new research correlating a series of large-scale igneous events which produced the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province (CAMP) and the Siberian Traps with mass extinction episodes. On February 8 another paper was published in the journal Global and Planetary Change which further supports correlations between mass extinction episodes with gigantic volcanic eruptions and catastrophic cosmic impacts. The lead author of the paper is Michael Rampino, who has for decades been in the forefront of researching catastrophic events in Earth history. I have been following his work since the early 1980s and hold him in high regard as a scientist who is willing to think outside established paradigms of Earth history. The abstract to the paper begins:

"We find that Large Igneous Province (LIP) volcanism, mostly continental flood basalts (CFBs), along with the largest extraterrestrial impacts show significant correlations with mass-extinction events in the Phanerozoic geologic record. The ages of the 6 major marine mass extinctions (≥ 40% extinction of genera) of the last 541 MY ̶ the end-Ordovician (~444 Ma), late Devonian (~ 372 Ma), end-Guadalupian (~259 Ma), end-Permian (~ 252 Ma), end-Triassic (~201 Ma), and end-Cretaceous (66 Ma) extinctions are significantly correlated with high-quality U — Pb zircon and 40Ar/39Ar ages of 6 continental flood basalts (CFBs) ̶ the Cape St. Mary's, Viluy, Emeishan, Siberian, CAMP, and the Deccan Basalts.

U — Pb zircon dating (Uranium-lead) is a widely used method for dating metamorphic rocks typically employing a thermal ionization mass spectrometer. Zircon is used because it includes uranium and thorium atoms in its crystalline structure when forming but rejects lead, so any lead found in a zircon crystal is radiogenic, meaning it results from radioactive decay. Argon dating can measure Argon isotopes from a single mineral grain. The ratio of Argon 40 to Argon 39 yields the age of the sample.

The extinctions listed above are considered to be major events in the history of life on Earth. A number of less severe extinctions have taken place, although these events are somewhat more difficult to discern in the geologic/palaeontologic record. Nevertheless, a correlation can be discerned between these extinctions and both volcanic eruptions and cosmic impact.