Earthquakes
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Moon

Strong 5.2 magnitude earthquake rattles Greece

earthquake near Athens, Greece
An earthquake with magnitude 5.2 occurred near Athens, Greece at 01:09:02.90 UTC on Jun 9, 2015. There have been no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

According to the Geodynamic Institute in Athens, the quake occurred early Tuesday morning in the Gulf of Northern Evia, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of Athens. Its epicentre was located 5 km deep near the city of Chalkida on Evia island. There have already been reported two smaller scale aftershocks.

"It was certainly felt, but so far we have not received any calls for assistance," a Greek fire brigade official in Athens said.

Earthquakes are common in Greece and have historically caused widespread damage across central and southern Greece, Cyprus, Sicily and other neighboring regions. Last year, a series of strong earthquakes on the island of Kefalonia damaged hundreds of homes and injured more than a dozen people.

Bizarro Earth

USGS: Earthquake Magnitude 6.2 - 64km ENE of Mutsu, Japan

Mutsu Quake_080615
© USGS
Time
  1. 2015-06-08 06:01:08 (UTC)
  2. Times in other timezones
Nearby Cities
  1. 64km (40mi) ENE of Mutsu, Japan
  2. 99km (62mi) NNE of Misawa, Japan
  3. 102km (63mi) SSW of Shizunai, Japan
  4. 107km (66mi) ESE of Hakodate, Japan
  5. 670km (416mi) NNE of Tokyo, Japan
Scientific Data

Bizarro Earth

Strong earthquake strikes Sabah

Kota Kinabalu: Tremors shook Kota Kinabalu and other parts of Sabah's west coast on Friday after a magnitude 5.9 earthquake hit near Ranau district. Initial reports from the Malaysian Meteorological Services Department said the quake struck 16km northwest of Ranau at 7.15am.

The US Geological Survey put the Richter scale at 6. No tsunami warning was issued.
Sabah Quake
© Courtesy of Malaysian Meteorological Department
It said that the strong quake struck at a depth of 10km, with its epicentre located 19km from the town of Ranau, and 54km from Kota Kinabalu. Apart from the state capital, the tremors were felt in the northern Kudat and Kota Marudu districts, and as far away Beaufort in the south.

The tremors shook buildings and rattled windows prompting people to run out from their houses, shops, and even at the Kota Kinabalu International Airport terminal.

The extent of damage cannot be immediately ascertained.

Bizarro Earth

Swarm of 7 earthquakes hit off Oregon coast

USGS monitoring station
© KOINThe wall of earthquake monitors at the USGS monitoring station in Vancouver, June 1, 2015
A series of earthquakes struck off the Oregon coast early Monday, but scientists said they weren't strong enough to trigger tsunamis.

The first came at magnitude 5.8. It struck about midnight Sunday and was followed by three quakes early Monday. They were of magnitude 4.3, 5 and 4.4. A fifth struck around 1:13 p.m. and registered at a 5.9 magnitude.

At 7:50 p.m., a 3.9 magnitude earthquake was recorded off the Oregon coast. Then at 8:11 p.m., a 4.2 magnitude trembler was felt.

A ground motion sensor near Mt. Hood picked up all of the ocean quake activity, highlighted by red indicators on screens at the U.S. Geological Survey offices in Vancouver.

They struck at a fault nearly 300 miles west of Coos Bay, Oregon. They were relatively shallow, at 6 miles deep.

KOIN 6 News wanted to know if these quakes could mean we're closer to a big offshore quake, like the one that rattled the region more than 300 years ago.

"These earthquakes are happening in a totally different part of the system and aren't really relevant in a physical way," USGS seismologist Seth Moran said.

According to Moran, Monday's quakes are on a fault line farther out to sea than the much more dangerous fault line right off the Oregon coast. That closer fault line — the Cascadia-Subduction Zone — has caused huge quakes in the past and is currently building up pressure.

Bizarro Earth

Dunedin, New Zealand jolted by strongest quake in 41 years

Dunedin Quake
© ThinkstockThe quake was 7km deep.
The 4.7-magnitude earthquake that rocked parts of Otago last night was believed to be the strongest experienced in the region since 1974.

It struck at 11.17pm at a depth of 7km, centred 2km northeast of Lee Stream, some 30km west of Dunedin.

The quake was felt in various parts of Otago, but there were no immediate reports of injury or damage.

Adrian Bardrick, publican at the Clarks Junction Hotel, on State Highway 87, only about 12km from the epicentre, said they received a pretty good "sort of thump".

It rattled the bottles, he said.

"But there was no damage."

The hotel was cleaning up after a good evening.

"The Strath Taieri boys had beaten the West Taieri boys" in rugby and had called in on their way home.

They had left by the time of the quake.

The largest quake significantly affecting Dunedin in the past several decades was on April 9, 1974. It was magnitude 5 and dislodged grocery stock and damaged some chimneys.

The quake on October 16 last year was magnitude 4.1 at a depth of 4km and in almost the same place as last night's shake.

Police early this morning received several calls but no reports of damage.

Bizarro Earth

Continental collision could trigger California tsunami

California Coastline
© Mark LeggA new study shows that an undersea area off the coast of California, known as the California Borderland, is building up seismic stress and could rupture catastrophically, unleashing tsunamis. Here, a map of the California Borderland, showing tectonic features and locations of earthquakes greater than Magnitude 5.5. The dashed box shows the area of the new study. The arrows show relative plate motion between the Pacific and North American plates.
Massive undersea earthquakes off the coast of California could send a tsunami crashing into Los Angeles or San Diego, new research suggests.

As the North American and Pacific tectonic plates grind past each other, large chunks of Earth's crust wedged between them get squeezed and twisted off Southern California and Baja California in Mexico. This logjam of crust could cause catastrophic ruptures at two faults along this boundary, setting off undersea temblors of magnitude 7.9 or 8.0, according to new research published April 25 in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface.

"We're dealing with continental collision," Mark Legg, a geologist at Legg Geophysical, a geoexploration and hazard assessment company in Huntington Beach, California, said in a statement. "That's fundamental. That's why we have this mess of a complicated logjam."

Moon

5.8 Magnitude earthquake hits off Oregon coast

(Reuters) - An earthquake struck off the coast of the U.S. state of Oregon on Monday, the U.S. Geological Survey reported.

It said the magnitude 5.8 quake occurred at sea 450 km (280 miles) west of Yachats at a depth of 10 km.

(Reporting by Jeremy Gaunt; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Comment: Just over a month ago, it is likely that the submarine volcano, Axial Seamount, erupted off the US North West coast.


Question

Unusual tremors crack walls, houses on Fiji Islands

Image
Tremors experienced in the district of Nakasaleka and Rakiraki in Kadavu have stopped. The Mineral Resources Department says a team will be going to the villages that experienced the tremors to carry out a geological investigation.

Director Malakai Finau says they will try to find why it is localized. "We need to investigate so we could find out more information about the events such as the centre, the epicentre and the depths and that would help us find out the real causes of these tremors." The tremors were experienced in the past week. Villagers reported cracks to walls of a hall and some houses in Nakasaleka.

Bizarro Earth

USGS: Earthquake Magnitude 6.4 - Izu Islands, Japan region

Izu Quake_300515
© USGS
Time
  1. 2015-05-30 18:49:07 (UTC)
  2. Times in other timezones
Nearby Cities
  1. 398km (247mi) SE of Hachijo-jima, Japan
  2. 546km (339mi) SSE of Katsuura, Japan
  3. 552km (343mi) SSE of Tateyama, Japan
  4. 552km (343mi) SSE of Kawaguchi, Japan
  5. 627km (390mi) SSE of Tokyo, Japan
Scientific Data

Comment:




Bizarro Earth

New study finds major faults offshore in southern California could trigger large earthquakes, tsunamis

map california borderland
© Mark LeggThis map shows the California Borderland and its major tectonic features, as well as the locations of earthquakes greater than Magnitude 5.5. The dashed box shows the area of the new study. Large arrows show relative plate motion for the Pacific-North America fault boundary. The abbreviations stand for the following: BP = Banning Pass, CH = Chino Hills, CP = Cajon Pass, LA = Los Angeles, PS = Palm Springs, V = Ventura; ESC = Santa Cruz Basin; ESCBZ = East Santa Cruz Basin Fault Zone; SCI = Santa Catalina Island; SCL = San Clemente Island; SMB = Santa Monica Basin; SNI = San Nicolas Island.
While their attention may be inland on the San Andreas Fault, residents of coastal Southern California could be surprised by very large earthquakes -- and even tsunamis -- from several major faults that lie offshore, a new study finds.

The latest research into the little known, fault-riddled, undersea landscape off of Southern California and northern Baja California has revealed more worrisome details about a tectonic train wreck in the Earth's crust with the potential for magnitude 7.9 to 8.0 earthquakes. The new study supports the likelihood that these vertical fault zones have displaced the seafloor in the past, which means they could send out tsunami-generating pulses towards the nearby coastal mega-city of Los Angeles and neighboring San Diego.

"We're dealing with continental collision," said geologist Mark Legg of Legg Geophysical in Huntington Beach, California, regarding the cause of the offshore danger. "That's fundamental. That's why we have this mess of a complicated logjam."

Legg is the lead author of the new analysis accepted for publication in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface, a journal of the American Geophysical Union. He is also one of a handful of geologists who have been trying for decades to piece together the complicated picture of what lies beyond Southern California's famous beaches.