Its ALL Blarney!!

So, the other night I dreamt about an earthquake. I remember in my dream thinking: at least this is only a dream (because the shaking felt so real). Welp, not long after, we actually DID have an earthquake. It woke me up. So, Im laying there in bed with the bed shaking and the lamp on the nightstand rattling, thinking: I hope my cats are ok……

Folks in my family have long had various brushes with psychic or paranormal phenomena. All except me. I think this was a first for me to have a prophetic dream. Of course my dream had slight differences, like I just invited an old couple into my home, then the house started shaking, and in real life I was in bed (since it was 4am) but but but….here’s the graph (and the shake map) of the earthquake:

looks pretty impressive when you see it in color like that, no? And it wasnt a very big quake, either. But big enough to be felt which is all that matters.  Here’s a link to the archived info from the recording station at Lake Almanor Fire Station.

so anyway, Im reading the news yesterday and I came across this article:

CHEYENNE, Wyo. – Yellowstone National Park was jostled by a host of small earthquakes for a third straight day Monday, and scientists watched closely to see whether the more than 250 tremors were a sign of something bigger to come. Swarms of small earthquakes happen frequently in Yellowstone, but it’s very unusual for so many earthquakes to happen over several days, said Robert Smith, a professor of geophysics at the University of Utah.

“They’re certainly not normal,” Smith said. “We haven’t had earthquakes in this energy or extent in many years.”

Smith directs the Yellowstone Seismic Network, which operates seismic stations around the park. He said the quakes have ranged in strength from barely detectable to one of magnitude 3.8 that happened Saturday. A magnitude 4 quake is capable of producing moderate damage.

“This is an active volcanic and tectonic area, and these are the kinds of things we have to pay attention to,” Smith said. “We might be seeing something precursory.

“Could it develop into a bigger fault or something related to hydrothermal activity? We don’t know. That’s what we’re there to do, to monitor it for public safety.”

The strongest of dozens of tremors Monday was a magnitude 3.3 quake shortly after noon. All the quakes were centered beneath the northwest end of Yellowstone Lake.

A park ranger based at the north end of the lake reported feeling nine quakes over a 24-hour period over the weekend, according to park spokeswoman Stacy Vallie. No damage was reported.

“There doesn’t seem to be anything to be alarmed about,” Vallie said.

Smith said it’s difficult to say what might be causing the tremors. He pointed out that Yellowstone is the caldera of a volcano that last erupted 70,000 years ago.

He said Yellowstone remains very geologically active — and its famous geysers and hot springs are a reminder that a pool of magma still exists five to 10 miles underground.

“That’s just the surface manifestation of the enormous amount of heat that’s being released through the system,” he said.

Yellowstone has had significant earthquakes as well as minor ones in recent decades. In 1959, a magnitude 7.5 quake near Hebgen Lake just west of the park triggered a landslide that killed 28 people.

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Maybe Im just earthquake sensitive right now, but Yellowstone seriously scares the CRAP outa me. That is the caldera of a super volcano, and if it becomes active, that whole region is in for a world of hurt. Not to mention the potential for serious global consequences, along the same lines as Krakatoa, where debris in the atmosphere hampered crop growing conditions for quite some time. Volcanoes are nothing to sniff at!!!! My brother, many years ago, told me that on one of his hunting expeditions in Yellowstone, a park ranger told him that the trees at one end of the lake are dying, and that the lake is actually tipping. To give you an idea of the SIZE of this thing, see below:

takes up the WHOLE FREAKIN STATE!!!! If you’re at all morbid and want to see what would happen (theoretically) if a supervolcano blew, go HERE

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Lastly, I direct your attention to the Tsunami. But not just ANY Tsunami, NO. I remind you of the catastrophic tsunami that struck Indonesia 4 years ago on 12/26/04, the one that resulted from an earthquake so profound, it rung the planet like a bell. Literally. Sent shock waves around the entire planet for quite some time. LIVE SCIENCE article states:

Earth’s very gravity balance was altered, and the North Pole shifted by an inch.

Wiki says this:

Energy released by the earthquake

The energy released on the earth’s surface only, M_Ewhich is the seismic potential for damage, by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami was estimated at 1.1×10¹⁷joules^[19] or 26.3 megatons of TNT. This energy is equivalent to over 1502 times that of the Hiroshima atomic bomb, but less than that of Tsar Bomba, the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated. However, this is but a tiny fraction of the total work done M_W (and thus energy) by this quake, 4.0×10²⁹ergs (40 ZJ)^[20], the vast majority underground. This equates to 4.0×10²² J, over 363 thousand times more than its M_E. This is a truly enormous figure, equivalent to 9,560 gigatons of TNT equivalent (550 million times that of Hiroshima), or about 370 years of energy use in the United States at 2005 levels of 1.08×10²⁰ J.

The only recorded earthquakes with a larger M_W were the 1960 Chilean and 1964 Alaskan quakes, with 2.5×10³⁰ ergs (250 ZJ) and 7.5×10²⁹ ergs (75 ZJ) respectively.^[21] Please see USGS:Measuring the size of earthquakes.

The earthquake generated seismic oscillation of the Earth’s surface of up to 20–30 cm (8–12 in), equivalent to the effect of the tidal forces caused by the Sun and Moon. The shock waves of the earthquake were felt across the planet; as far away as the U.S. state of Oklahoma, where vertical movements of 3 mm (0.12 in) were recorded.

Because of its enormous energy release and shallow rupture depth, the earthquake generated remarkable seismic ground motions around the globe, particularly due to huge Rayleigh (surface) elastic waves that exceeded 1 cm in vertical amplitude everywhere on Earth. The record section plot below displays vertical displacements of the Earth’s surface recorded by seismometers from the IRIS/USGS Global Seismographic Network plotted with respect to time (since the earthquake initiation) on the horizontal axis, and vertical displacements of the Earth on the vertical axis (note the 1 cm scale bar at the bottom for scale). The seismograms are arranged vertically by distance from the epicenter in degrees. The earliest, lower amplitude, signal is that of the compressional (P) wave, which takes about 22 minutes to reach the other side of the planet (the antipode; in this case near Ecuador). The largest amplitude signals are seismic surface waves that reach the antipode after about 100 minutes. The surface waves can be clearly seen to reinforce near the antipode (with the closest seismic stations in Ecuador), and to subsequently encircle the planet to return to the epicentral region after about 200 minutes. A major aftershock (magnitude 7.1) can be seen at the closest stations starting just after the 200 minute mark. This aftershock would be considered a major earthquake under ordinary circumstances, but is dwarfed by the mainshock.

 

Vertical-component ground motions recorded by the IRIS/USGS Global Seismographic Network

The shift of mass and the massive release of energy very slightly altered the Earth’s rotation. The exact amount is not yet known, but theoretical models suggest the earthquake shortened the length of a day by 2.68 microseconds, due to a decrease in the oblateness of the Earth.^[22] It also caused the Earth to minutely “wobble” on its axis by up to 2.5 cm (1 in) in the direction of 145° east longitude,^[23] or perhaps by up to 5 or 6 cm (2.0 to 2.4 in).^[24] However, because of tidal effects of the Moon, the length of a day increases at an average of 15 µs per year, so any rotational change due to the earthquake will be lost quickly. Similarly, the natural Chandler wobble of the Earth, which in some cases can be up to 15 m (50 ft), will eventually offset the minor wobble produced by the earthquake.

More spectacularly, there was 10 m (33 ft) movement laterally and 4–5 m (13–16 ft) vertically along the fault line. Early speculation was that some of the smaller islands south-west of Sumatra, which is on the Burma Plate (the southern regions are on the Sunda Plate), might have moved south-west by up to 36 m (118 ft), but more accurate data released more than a month after the earthquake found the movement to be about 20 cm (7.9 in).^[25] Since movement was vertical as well as lateral, some coastal areas may have been moved to below sea level. The Andaman and Nicobar Islands appear to have shifted south-west by around 1.25 m (4.1 ft) and to have sunk by 1 m (3.28 ft).^[26]

In February 2005, the Royal Navy vessel HMS Scott surveyed the seabed around the earthquake zone, which varies in depth between 1,000 m and 5,000 m (3,300 ft and 16,500 ft). The survey, conducted using a high-resolution, multi-beam sonar system, revealed that the earthquake had made a huge impact on the topography of the seabed. 1,500-meter (5,000 ft) high thrust ridges created by previous geologic activity along the fault had collapsed, generating landslides several kilometers wide. One such landslide consisted of a single block of rock some 100 m high and 2 km long (300 ft by 1.25 mi). The momentum of the water displaced by tectonic uplift had also dragged massive slabs of rock, each weighing millions of tons, as far as 10 km (7 mi) across the seabed. An oceanic trench several kilometres wide was exposed in the earthquake zone.^[27]

The TOPEX/Poseidon and Jason 1 satellites happened to pass over the tsunami as it was crossing the ocean.^[28] These satellites carry radars that measure precisely the height of the water surface; anomalies of the order of 50 cm (20 in) were measured. Measurements from these satellites may prove invaluable for the understanding of the earthquake and tsunami.^[29] Unlike data from tide gauges installed on shores, measurements obtained in the middle of the ocean can be used for computing the parameters of the source earthquake without having to compensate for the complex ways in which close proximity to the coast changes the size and shape of a wave.

Now THATS intense!!! HERE is where you can find the audio clip of that massive event that was recorded UNDERWATER hundreds of miles AWAY!!!  **NOTE**  this clip used to be hosted on Live Science and easily accessible, but Ive had to hunt down another version, save to my computer and upload to zshare.  zhare is a perfectly good site for file hosting, but you have to wade your way thru ads.  Thats how it stays free.  anyway, the file is an mp3 file and should be easily read by most OS.  Let me know if you have problems, and I’ll try to find another clip….

I dont know about you folks, but stuff like this gives me the heebie jeebies….

~ by irishgrl on December 30, 2008.

Posted in because I said so, Oddz and Endz
Tags: caldera, earthquakes, heebie jeebies, supervolcano, Yellowstone