Quake rattled Earth orbit, changed map of Asia: US geophysicist

[truthpusher]

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20041228/wl_afp/asiaquakeusmapshift_041228051419

World - AFP

Quake rattled Earth orbit, changed map of Asia: US geophysicist

Tue Dec 28,12:14 AM ET World - AFP

LOS ANGELES, (AFP) - An earthquake that unleashed deadly tidal waves on Asia was so powerful it made the Earth wobble on its axis and permanently altered the regional map, US geophysicists said.

The 9.0-magnitude temblor that struck 250 kilometers (155 miles) southeast of Sumatra island Sunday may have moved small islands as much as 20 meters (66 feet), according to one expert.

"That earthquake has changed the map," US Geological Survey expert Ken Hudnut told AFP.

(snip)

In addition, the energy released as the two sides of the undersea fault slipped against each other made the Earth wobble on its axis, Hudnut said.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20041228/wl_afp/asiaquakeusmapshift_041228051419

USGS Site:
http://www.usgs.gov/

[Eloriel]

1. Wow -- that's just plain scary

Isn't it? Wobbling the axis, moving islands that far.

This article calls this quake " the fourth-biggest earthquake in a century" -- does anyone know when and where and how big earlier quakes were? It just seems to me that 9.0 or 9.2 (whichever they finally decided on) is the biggest ever in modern times, but I keep hearing not.

[Spinzonner]

3. One was Alaska, 1964

http://www.wcatwc.gov/64quake.htm

[CottonBear]

4. I think that Chile had a 9.5 & Alaska a 9.2.

but I'm not sure of the dates. Maybe the 1950s or 60s in Alaska.

[Spinzonner]

5. Largest Chile, 1960

http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/eq_depot/world/1960_05_22.html

[Kindigger]

7. Here's a link to other quakes

http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/eqlists/10maps_world.html

[Dcitizen]

25. Will human run out of luck?

Indian ocean quake is the sinking of sea bottom at the earth's cracks that is the most dangerous cause and the only earthbound one leading to the earth's axis of rotation to shift so that the equator would tend to move closer to the down shift area. Luckily, the mass sinking of sea bed happened almost at the equator in Indonesia.

I think the 9+ quakes in AK and in Chile maybe had no affect to the pole shift and were less dangerous, because they were the near coast land slide or in inland quake.

The trough tsunami's catastrophic depends on how big sea botton is sinking. If the mass sinking of mantle along the earth's hot spots in Pacific or the Azores in Atlantic then it will be a world wide catastrophic. The casualties of over 100,000 Indo-Asian are so horrible that I think US should have a world plan asap to deal with these real threats to save ourselves and next generations of human kind

[TransitJohn]

27. Man, you've befuddled me.

Convection in the Earth's mantle creates hotspots through thermal convection. Heat rises. Oceanic crust doesn't sink at hotspots. Under oceanic "hotspots" (the term really has not much geologic import) either MORBs or OIBs are extruded, depending on whether the volcanism is related to a spreading tectonic margin. In either case, crust doesn't "sink." And besides, movement along faults is relative to the plate on the other side of the fault.

MORB=Mid Ocean Ridge Basalt
OIB=Ocean Island Basalt

On edit: explain basalts.

[Dcitizen]

43. Some links

Lithosphere, created at the ocean spreading centers, cools as it ages and eventually becomes dense enough to sink back into the mantle
http://www.seismo.unr.edu/ftp/pub/louie/class/100/plate-tectonics.html

Scientific American March 94
http://www.sciamdigital.com/browse.cfm?sequencenameCHAR=item2&methodnameCHAR=resource_getitembrowse&interfacenameCHAR=browse.cfm&ISSUEID_CHAR=63CE8276-087E-4FB4-B415-29C5E0D0569&ARTICLEID_CHAR=EE1BB123-05B3-4558-A85A-760D147E18F&sc=I100322

[mrbassman03]

51. Wha??????

If you mean to say: It was caused by a slip on the subduction zone, which tends to be the most powerful type of earthquake... I gotcha.

[barb162]

41. I thought this was scary too. Shows how fragile the planet is.

[CottonBear]

2. Wow!

:wow:

[flordehinojos]

6. i can't imagine the horror and the pain of the people living through this

nightmare. i can't imagine how any of us would be handling it if any of this earth moving had occurred here in this country if mother earth had sent her painful sighs our way ... while we like to think that we are all powerful, that we have control over so much of what is ourlives ... we are so powerless ...... really... may God have Mercy on us all!

[RaleighNCDUer]

10. It could well happen.

I read a couple years ago about a study done of Anatolian earthquakes, and how researchers tracked the progression of quakes across the map, each one setting up conditions for the next, over a period of ten years or so.

It only makes sense that an event of this magnitude would have an effect on the tectonic plates connected to it, and they would, in turn, affect their neighbors. N.A. plate connects to the Pacific plate, connected to the (whatever) plate in Indonesia. It may take a few years, but this could be the prelude to California's Big One.

[zann725]

38. I live in L.A., and am truly worried.

We've not had any large tremors here in some time (actually almost 11 years ago now). And therefore one is no doubt soon due...even without the current earth shifting.

Perhaps it IS time to move...

[mrbassman03]

52. 11 years is nothing...

Geologic history is not measured in single years like that... While it seems like a long time, 11 years does not mean an earthquake is due. Try 300 years on the Juan de Fuca/North American plate in WA and OR.

[tinanator]

13. it messes with you

even a lesser disaster will teach you the real meaning of fear and totally disrupt your day to day faith in your environment.

[Massachusetts]

8. When

is the Mother ship coming back to get me outa here??????

[allemand]

9. It moved the northwestern tip of Sumatra by 36 meters !

"The northwestern tip of the Indonesian territory of Sumatra may also have shifted to the southwest by around 36 meters (120 feet), Hudnut said."

And that is very close to the capital, Banda Aceh. My God, I know people who have family there. This is horrible.

:cry:

[mcscajun]

15. The entire island is reported to have shifted 100 feet.

And to put that in perspective, the island of Sumatra is TWICE the size of Great Britain.

And it just got moved...100 Feet. All at once.

YIKES!

:scared: :wow: :scared:

[BrightKnight]

20. GPS ocean charts and street maps will no longer work in the region.

This could cause very serious problems for shipping. All of the paper charts are wrong too. 120 feet can sink a ship trying to get past a reef at night. The enrtance to may harbors can be very small. A huge amount of oil goes through there.

[jmcgowanjm]

11. "There is no help, it is each person for themselves here,"

"There is no help, it is each person for themselves here," district official Tengku Zulkarnain told el-Shinta radio station.

We still don't know.
Just think about how little we knew about Punta
Gorda, Fl at this time of the event.

And what about Diego Garcia?

http://dg21.net/where_in_the_world_is_diego_garcia.htm

Still no word about Andaman/Nicobar
Islands-at least 350k people there.

It was the deadliest known tsunami since the one caused by
the 1883 volcanic eruption at Krakatoa — located off
Sumatra's southern tip — which killed an estimated
36,000 people.

Has the shift in land ruptured steam/magma "plumbing?

[jmcgowanjm]

12. And to compound-Aceh is in rebellion

Indonesia's Aceh province exemplified the challenge to
aid workers. The government until Monday barred
foreigners because of a separatist conflict.
Communications lines were still down and remote villages
had yet to be reached.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20041228/ap_on_re_as/quake_tidal_wave

[RaleighNCDUer]

14. Has the shift in land ruptured steam/magma "plumbing?

Interesting thought. If all the active vents and volcanoes were to shut down for a period of time, what would happen. This is, after all, the region that gave us the supervolcano 70,000 years ago that nearly extinguished humanity from the globe.

What? Oh, I'm sorry. The earth is only 10,000 years old, so obviously that didn't happen. No worries.

[Left Brain]

24. Yeah, c 'mon!

(smacks forehead) what are we thinking, putting so much faith in this "science" stuff?

Hurry along, nothing to worry about here...

[jmcgowanjm]

31. Krakatau volcano lies in the Sunda strait

Krakatau volcano lies in the Sunda strait between the islands
of Java and Sumatra. In about 416 A.D., caldera
collapse destroyed the volcano and formed a 4-mile (7-km)
wide caldera.

I would have to study this, but off the top,
what if there would be a plate shift, then eruption
from pent up steam/magma, searching/finding
weak crust.

the magma (lubricant?) leaving would
prevent easy movement of plates-
until sudden shift

Repeat?

[allemand]

34. Yes, on Middle Andaman island.

A volcano is also reported to be spewing lava on one Andaman island.

<...>

On Middle Andaman island, lava is reported to be spewing near Baratang town, 100km (60 miles) from Port Blair.

Police chief Samsher Deol said: "It began on Tuesday night. Flames and lava are shooting up three metres high. We cleared the population from a half kilometre range as a precaution... and put up barricades."

About 2,000 people live in Baratang.

Fears rise for Andaman thousands
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4134751.stm

[Oreegone]

16. The airport in Port Blair is open in the Adaman Islands

Minimal damage on the island of Havlock. A friends daughter was missing and she listed her name with the State Department. They called and said she was at a resort with 200 other people. They are flying supplies in and people out of the Port Blair airport. The airport runway has been repaired. Most of the fatalities are on the lower islands and Nicobar chain where the islands are flat. Many aboriginal tribes live there. Many of them are still underwater so many have perished.

[merh]

17. Fundies are going to have such great joy.

This just supports their end of time theories. :cry: They actually get excited about things like this, not in a bad way, but in a weird sort of happy way? :shrug:

[fooj]

18. sick and demented people...

why are they so convoluted in their thinking? just boggles the mind...
YIKES!!!!!!!!!!

[merh]

19. Try having a conversation with one about the natural disasters over

the last year. They get a calm, sincere expression on their face and they tell you in a monotone, almost hypnotic voice that the bible says that these things will happen before the 2nd coming of Jesus.

It is scary as hell! :scared:

[SemperEadem]

28. happened to me just this evening

with my funda-mental case brother... I was talking about what a high death toll there was in the Asian tsunami and all he could think to say was "I hope they knew Jesus before they died..." (he's the most packaged xtian I have ever known in my life--talks the shit, but doesn't live it) I said to him "what's the point of knowing Jesus when you don't bother to live strictly by his teachings?"

[flygal]

42. Strange how you get those in some families

I don't have any in my family (thank God - ;)

[radfringe]

29. logic?

my fundy neighbor typically pooh-pooh's "science", but clings to a doctrine that only requires blind faith...

go figure

[JI7]

30. yup, how does one debate with someone who brings up God

and other beliefs to argue their point.

we use facts,evidence etc. they just talk about what they believe.

[jmcgowanjm]

32. "Fallen Times" n/t

[salin]

54. but all those previous disasters...

if those weren't the "signal"... than why is this? Such absence of rational thought.

btw, this helps explain their "Christian Persecution" meme... heard it on one of those radio preacher shows (long commute, cd player down, flipping the radio...) - apparently another condition to the 2nd coming is persecution of Christians.

Again the absence of rational thought given that the examples they use are no way on par with real historic examples of religious persecutions... but nothing is going to get in their way of manufacturing (in their heads) the fulfillment of "Signs"

[arwalden]

23. This Is Why It's Not Smart To Have An "End-Timer" With His Finger On...

... the nuclear button.

The "weird happy way" that you describe is EXACTLY what someone like Bush* would feel. He'd actually WANT to do the things that would bring about the "end times"... or NOT take the wise decisions that would help to avoid Armegeddon.

Indeed, these zealots are insane.

[merh]

36. Very good point!

:scared:

[Jack_DeLeon]

46. Well when it snows in South Texas....

sometimes you have to wonder.

LoL.

[VegasWolf]

21. Wonder if Jerry Falwell will blame this on the gay and transvestite

sex trades in Asia. God just sorting things out.

[mrbassman03]

47. The ones who protested Matthew Shepard's funeral said they were happy...

That there was the chance that gay Swedish vacationers were killed! WTF?????? This was posted on DU earlier, I may try to find it.

[peacetalksforall]

22. While I accuse the right of politizing nearly everything, I want to

politicize this - I fear that earth devestators, Bush and the cabal that created him, are going to use this wobble to say that it caused the earth to warm (since they are out of touch with reality and/or especially when it comes to revising history or timelines for their orchestrated purposes).

The corporations are never going to take responsibility and the cabal will facilitate their predatory and destructive practices. I am sure that some time in the future, revisionist-crazies will claim that earth warming, if there really is any at which they will scoff, came/comes from this earthquake-tsunami.

[Ima]

26. predicted before hand

What is so mysterious about the earthquake and the subsequent tidal wave? Cannot it be predicted earlier and the people be warned of it? Could necessary precautions be taken to minimise the loss to life and property? In fact, the quake was actually predicted by a team of research scholars of the Department of Applied Geology, University of Madras, with a permissible error, a week ago.

N Venkatanathan, research scholar, who is currently undergoing a Ph.D programme in Predicting Earthquake and Aseismic Construction Designing and the man behind the team working on predictions, said he had already presented a report about the Indonesian earthquake on 22 December to members of the Department of Science and Technology, New Delhi.

The 15-member team headed by S K Tandan were in Chennai at that time for a meeting.

Venkatanathan, said, 'we predicted that the disaster will occur on 26 December 2004 at 00:30 (GMT) with 3.54 N latitude and 97.17E longitude, which is located near the coast of Banyak Island, Sumatra, Indonesia, with a magnitude at around 6 to 7. The actual calamity occurred on 26 December 2004 at 00:58 (GMT), with 3.298 N latitude and 95.779 E longitude, located off the west coast of northern Sumatra'.

The difference in distance between the predicted place and the epicentre was 157.11899 km with a time difference of 28 minutes. He also said the team had predicted that the after-shocks would occur at 700 km to the South of the epicentre between 5 pm and 6 pm. This was recorded with permissible error. It occurred at 157 km from the epicentre. That is with the error of 521 km.

http://newstodaynet.com/27DEC/SS6.HTM

[jmcgowanjm]

33. Weather, economics, population dynamics, ecology and society

itself all come within the umbrella of non-linear systems and
this means that all scientific analysis and the creation
of theoretical models must be seriously qualified. A
computer model of a system may work in a certain region
but change the external conditions ever so slightly and the
whole thing can break down. Dealing with a non-linear
system becomes as much an art as a
science.

-Chaos Theory

The problem is that while our human experience tells us that
this reductionist and mechanistic approach (Newtonion
physics) is not simply
over optimistic but profoundly wrong, our
organizations
and governments, plans and strategies retain a simple faith
in prediction and control. Clearly if, at its deepest level, the
world is not mechanical yet our strategies and plans
are predicated upon a mechanical perspective then we are
in serious trouble.

http://www.paricenter.com/library/papers/gentle02.php

Also see- self organizing systems,
memes (Richard Dawkins)

We have to begin to view the universe as ultimately
constituted not of matter and energy, but of pure
information.
--Michael Talbot, BEYOND THE QUANTUM

http://www.geocities.com/iona_m/Chaosophy/chaosophy12.html

[PROGRESSIVE1]

40. kick

[allemand]

35. Same kind of earthquake possible at Cascadia Subduction Zone

'Clusters' of earthquakes yield an ominous scenario

CORVALLIS, Ore. – The newest studies on the Cascadia Subduction Zone off the coast of the Pacific Northwest have identified a "clustering" of great earthquakes of the type that would cause a major tsunami, yielding a historical record with two distinct implications - one that's good, the other not.
According to scientists at Oregon State University, this subduction zone has just experienced a cluster of four massive earthquakes during the past 1600 years, and if historical trends continue, this cluster could be over and the zone may already have entered a long quiet period of 500 to 1,000 years, which appears to be common following a cluster of earthquake events.
Alternatively, the current cluster of earthquakes may have one or more events left in it – some clusters within the past 10,000 years have had clusters of up to five events – and within a cluster, the average time interval between earthquakes is 300 years. Since the last major Cascadia earthquake occurred in the year 1700, the next event may well be imminent.

<...>

According to Goldfinger, there are remarkable geologic parallels between what just happened in East Asia and what could happen in the Pacific Northwest. <...> "In the case of the Cascadia Subduction Zone, you could have an area of ocean sea floor that's 50 miles wide and 500-600 miles long suddenly snap back up, causing a huge tsunami," Goldfinger said. "At the same time, we could expect some parts of the upper, or North American plate to sink one to two meters. These are massive tectonic events. Subduction zones produce the most powerful earthquakes and tsunamis in the world."

More:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-12/osu-oe122904.php

[mrbassman03]

48. Some errors...

This article discusses the massive mega-thrusts that are possible on a subduction zone, but gets key parts wrong. First, it says the "cycle" of earthquakes along the Juan de Fuca/North American plate boundaries is 300 years. It is more like 600. Anyway, the earthquakes that happen at the interval are not the huge earthquakes described later. Those are MUCH less common, have little chance of occurring, nothing to get worried about.

[allemand]

53. I thought that the article said that the cycle was 500-1000 years, but

that it came in "clusters" of four to five earthquakes, and that within on cluster of earthquakes there could be differences of up to 300 years.

[Baclava]

37. Science isn't working

...anybody know any virgins?

Time to start up the sacrifices to appease the gods.

(or...does that only work for volcanoes?)

dammit - this knowledge has probably been lost for the ages...

[TahitiNut]

39. I think they have it backwards.

I think the movement of the tectonic plates on which the islands rest is what caused the earthquake(s), not vice-versa. So, when they say "the...temblor...moved...islands" it seems to me they're subtly misinforming folks.

[mrbassman03]

50. Very good point...

An earthquake is not like a bomb or something that goes off underground, it only occurs when the plates move. And it is a big pet peeve of mine when people talk about how unusual this earthquake was and all the crazy things that it did. The Earth moves all the time! It is through the process of shifting plates, volcanoes, and EARTHQUAKES that the world is in its current state. The human side of this is the part we should focus on, not the actual earthquake.

[satori]

44. Tsunami may have changed map of India

Borneo Bulletin
Brunei Darussalam
12/31/2004

NEW DELHI (dpa) - Sunday's tsunami following the earthquake off the Indonesian coast may have changed India's map forever, newspaper reports said.

Only the tip of a lighthouse which once stood on an island on India's southernmost tip in the Andaman and Nicobar islands now rears its head above the choppy waters of the Indian Ocean, The Telegraph newspaper reported Thursday.

"A very important and integral part of our country's border is totally submerged," said Patil, referring to Indira Point, named after former Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi.

He added it may not be the only area to have disappeared off India's map. Several of the 572 islands that comprise Andaman and Nicobar had been submerged and some had "tilted," he said. Only 38 of these islands were inhabited.

http://www.brunei-online.com/bb/fri/dec31w15.htm

[satori]

45. Literally earth-shaking, quake moved the North Pole

Friday, December 31, 2004
BY KITTA MacPHERSON
Star-Ledger Staff

Beyond killing tens of thousands and unleashing a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions, the twinned earthquake and tsunami that struck Southeast Asia Sunday altered the angle of the Earth on its axis, moved the North Pole, pushed walls of water throughout all the world's oceans and shifted the soil as far away as Newark, researchers are reporting.

http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-19/110447497387630.xml

[mrbassman03]

49. The north pole moves all the time...

It is called apparent polar wandering and had happened throughout the history of the Earth.