Earthquakes
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Bizarro Earth

Magnitude 7.3 earthquake in the Banda Sea off Indonesia felt more than 600 kilometres away in Darwin

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© Credit: Audience submittedA shipping container was shaken off its stands at Nguiu on the Tiwi Islands, about 100 kilometres north of Darwin.
A magnitude 7.3 earthquake in the Banda Sea off Indonesia has been felt more than 600 kilometres away in Darwin.

Geoscience Australia says there could be more aftershocks from the quake that shook the Top End of the Northern Territory overnight.

Tremors were felt in Darwin and Katherine at about 2.30am local time and were the strongest in the north for about 20 years.

Overnight staff at the Darwin weather bureau evacuated their third-storey office while the building shook.

Duty forecaster Angeline Prasad says the tremor was the strongest she has felt.

"The building started shaking and it just became worse," she said.

"It is the worst tremor I've felt in Darwin.

Bizarro Earth

USGS: Earthquake Magnitude 7.1 - 229km NW of Saumlaki, Indonesia

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© USGS
Event Time:
2012-12-10 16:53:09 UTC
2012-12-11 01:53:09 UTC+09:00 at epicenter

Location:
6.522°S 129.813°E depth=157.7km (98.0mi)

Nearby Cities:
229km (142mi) NW of Saumlaki, Indonesia
338km (210mi) WSW of Tual, Indonesia
361km (224mi) SSE of Ambon, Indonesia
366km (227mi) SSE of Amahai, Indonesia
519km (322mi) ENE of Dili, East Timor

Radar

Powerful earthquake injures 13 in Japan, 1 still missing

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© Xinhua/Ma PingPhoto taken on Dec. 7, 2012 shows the scene of Japan's Tokyo after an earthquake. A 7.3-magnitude earthquake jolted off the east coast of Honshu of Japan, resulting in a tsunami warning for the country's northeastern coastal areas, according to Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA).
Tokyo - About 13 people were injured and one still missing after a magnitude 7.3 earthquake jolted off eastern coast of Japan Friday. Two seniors were found injured in Aomori and Miyagi Prefectures respectively Saturday morning, local police said. The rest 11 injured were reported Friday after the quake, which also triggered tsunami up to one meter high along parts of Japan's Pacific coast. Iwate authorities said they are still searching for a senior, who went missing after evacuating in a boat from Kuji port in the prefecture in response to tsunami alerts.

Bizarro Earth

USGS: Earthquake Magnitude 6.3 - 19km SE of Tokoroa, New Zealand

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© USGS
Event Time:
2012-12-07 18:19:08 UTC
2012-12-08 07:19:08 UTC+13:00 at epicenter

Location:
38.334°S 176.044°E depth=167.2km (103.9mi)

Nearby Cities:
19km (12mi) SE of Tokoroa, New Zealand
27km (17mi) SW of Rotorua, New Zealand
38km (24mi) N of Taupo, New Zealand
72km (45mi) S of Tauranga, New Zealand
345km (214mi) NNE of Wellington, New Zealand

Bizarro Earth

USGS: Earthquake Magnitude 7.3 - 245km SE of Kamaishi, Japan and subsequent aftershocks

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© USGS
Event Time:
2012-12-07 08:18:24 UTC
2012-12-07 18:18:24 UTC+10:00 at epicenter

Location:
37.889°N 144.090°E depth=36.1km (22.4mi)

Nearby Cities:
245km (152mi) SE of Kamaishi, Japan
245km (152mi) ESE of Ofunato, Japan
251km (156mi) ESE of Ishinomaki, Japan
251km (156mi) SE of Otsuchi, Japan
462km (287mi) ENE of Tokyo, Japan

Attention

Strong magnitude 7.3 earthquake hits off Japan near Fukushima disaster zone

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© Reuters/KyodoFirefighters persuade residents to evacuate after a strong earthquake hit the area in Rikuzentakata, Iwate prefecture, in this photo taken by Kyodo December 7, 2012.
Tokyo - A strong earthquake centered off the coast of northeastern Japan shook buildings as far away as Tokyo on Friday and triggered a one-meter tsunami in an area devastated by last year's Fukushima disaster.

The quake had a preliminary magnitude of 7.3, the U.S. Geological Survey said, adding that there was no risk of a widespread tsunami. There were no immediate reports of death or injury.

The March 2011 earthquake and following tsunami killed nearly 20,000 people and triggered the world's worst nuclear crisis in 25 years when the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant was destroyed, leaking radiation into the sea and air.

Workers at the plant were ordered to move to higher ground after Friday's quake. Tokyo Electric Power Co, the operator of the Fukushima nuclear plant, reported no irregularities at its nuclear plants.

The quake measured a "lower 5" in Miyagi prefecture on Japan's scale of one to seven, meaning there might be some damage to roads and houses that are less quake resistant.

The scale measures the amount of shaking and in that sense gives a better idea of possible damage than the magnitude. The quake registered a 4 in Tokyo.

Bizarro Earth

Tsunamis, earthquakes overdue in Lake Tahoe

Lake Tahoe
© Jillian Maloney, ScrippsA lidar image of Fallen Leaf Lake in the Lake Tahoe Basin. The blue line is the West Tahoe Fault. The rainbow hues reflect the depth of the lake.
San Francisco - A tsunami-producing fault in Lake Tahoe is overdue for another earthquake, scientists said here yesterday (Dec. 4) at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union.

The West Tahoe Fault is capable of producing a magnitude-7.3 earthquake and tsunamis up to 30 feet (10 meters) high in the clear blue lake, where million-dollar homes line the shore, researchers said.

Earthquakes strike every 3,000 to 4,000 years on the fault, and the most recent shaker was 4,500 years ago, indicating the fault is overdue for another earthquake, said Jillian Maloney, a graduate student at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego.

The West Tahoe fault defines the west shore of the lake, coming on shore at Baldwin Beach, passing through the southern third of Fallen Leaf Lake, and then descending into Christmas Valley near Echo Summit.

Attention

Eight dead in magnitude 5.5 earthquake in eastern Iran

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Dubai - An earthquake measuring 5.5 in magnitude struck eastern Iran on Wednesday, killing eight people and injuring 12 others as emergency teams scrambled to rescue others and treat the injured, Iranian media reported.

People fled their homes as the quake struck and brought walls and buildings down. But others were left trapped under rubble in villages across the district of Zohan in South Khorasan province, Fars news agency said.

"Eight people have been killed in the earthquake area and one person is missing. Unfortunately a number of those injured have lost their lives in the last few hours," Mehr news agency quoted South Khorasan's crisis management director Mohammad Ali Akhundi as saying.

"Homes have sustained damage and people are out in public places and they need the means to keep themselves warm because of the cold," he said.

Iran's Red Crescent Society despatched 15 rescue teams to the affected areas to search for people stuck under the debris and doctors in the provincial capital of Birjand were on alert to treat those hurt, Fars new agency reported.

Rescue units of Iran's national Basij militia also joined operations, despatching three medical teams.

Info

Hotspots for huge earthquakes revealed

Earthquake Map
© John Nelson, IDV SolutionsMore than 100 years of earthquakes glow on a world map.
The strongest earthquakes that strike the planet, such as the 9.0-magnitude earthquake that hit Japan last year, occur at particular "hotspot" points of Earth's crust, a new study finds.

About 87 percent of the 15 largest earthquakes in the last century occurred in the intersection between specific areas on spreading ocean plates, called oceanic fracture zones, and subduction zones, where one tectonic plate slides underneath another, according to the paper, published recently in the journal Solid Earth. The scientists used a data mining method to find correlations between locations of earthquakes over the last 100 years, the strength and geological origin.

The bottom of the ocean is crossed by underwater ridges, such as the mid-Atlantic ridge, which runs north to south between the Americas and Africa. These ridges divide two tectonic plates that move apart as lava emerges, solidifying and creating new rock. The midocean ridge jogs back and forth at offsets known as transform faults, creating zigzag-shaped plate boundaries. Fracture zones are scars in the ocean floor left by these transform faults.

Bizarro Earth

USGS: Earthquake Magnitude 5.6 - 42km ESE of Qayen, Iran

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© USGS
Event Time
2012-12-05 20:38:12 UTC+03:30 at epicenter

Location
33.520°N 59.570°E depth=5.4km (3.3mi)

Nearby Cities
42km (26mi) ESE of Qayen, Iran
79km (49mi) NNE of Birjand, Iran
123km (76mi) SE of Gonabad, Iran
175km (109mi) SW of Taybad, Iran
503km (313mi) SSE of Ashgabat, Turkmenistan