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Roger Bilham, a seismologist at the University of Colorado, told The Daily Express: 'The current conditions might trigger at least four earthquakes greater than 8.0 in magnitude. 'And if they delay, the strain accumulated during the centuries provokes more catastrophic mega earthquakes.' In addition to the four major earthquakes to have struck since Thursday, last week there were also shakes in the Philippines, Vanuatu and Myanmar. All of the earthquakes have occurred in countries straddling the so-called Ring of Fire. This is a horseshoe-shaped series of trenches spanning the Pacific Ocean where tectonic plates are shifting and seismic and volcanic...

A magnitude-7.8 earthquake occurred Saturday evening on the coast of Ecuador, according to the United States Geological Survey. The tremor was recorded at a depth of 19.2 kilometers (11.9 miles). There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries in the capital of Quito, located 173 kilometers (108 miles) from the epicenter of the earthquake.

A powerful earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 7.8 has struck just off the coast of northwest Ecuador, centered near Pedernales and Muisne, seismologists say. A tsunami alert has been issued for coastal areas of Ecuador and Colombia. LIVE UPDATES: Twitter, Facebook The earthquake, at 6:58 p.m. local time on Saturday, was centered just northwest of Pedernales, or 27 kilometers (17 miles) southeast of Muisne. It struck about 19 kilometers (12 miles) deep, making it a shallow earthquake, according to seismologists. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) put the magnitude of Saturday's earthquake at 7.8, a significant increase from its...

Japan's Kumamoto earthquake, which took place early on Saturday, was upgraded from a provisional magnitude of 7.2 to 7.3. The temblor was felt across wide swathes of southern Japan and triggered a tsunami warning, although the advisory was later lifted. As the situation in Kumamoto continues to escalate, a second quake registering magnitude-5.8 also struck in the region at 03:55 local time. Prior to that, numerous aftershocks jolted the region that had already been pummeled by a series of quakes and aftershocks striking a day earlier. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's planned trip to the already quake-ravaged region, scheduled for...

The quake was only 10km deep.

A STRONG earthquake has hit southwestern Japan, bringing down buildings, killing at least nine people and injuring hundreds, as rescuers scramble to find residents feared trapped in rubble. Eight of the dead were from the hardest-hit town of Mashiki, about 15km east of Kumamoto city on the island of Kyushu. The initial 6.5-magnitude quake struck at 9.26pm (10.20pm AEST) at a depth of 11km near Kumamoto city on the island of Kyushu, the Japan Meteorological Agency said. There was no tsunami risk. More than 100 aftershocks strong enough to be felt followed in the same region.

TOKYO (AP) — A powerful earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.4 struck southern Japan on Thursday evening, collapsing walls and a number of houses. There are no immediate reports of casualties.

Note: Other earthquakes in the area today: 6.9/6.7 6.9 two days ago Seismotectonics of the Eastern Margin of the Australia Plate The eastern margin of the Australia plate is one of the most sesimically active areas of the world due to high rates of convergence between the Australia and Pacific plates. In the region of New Zealand, the 3000 km long Australia-Pacific plate boundary extends from south of Macquarie Island to the southern Kermadec Island chain. It includes an oceanic transform (the Macquarie Ridge), two oppositely verging subduction zones (Puysegur and Hikurangi), and a transpressive continental transform, the Alpine Fault...

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spate of major earthquakes on small faults could overturn traditional views about how earthquakes start, according to a study from researchers at the Centro de Investigación Científica y de Educación Superior in Ensenada, Mexico, and the University of California, Davis. In the past 25 years, many of California’s biggest earthquakes struck on small faults, away from the San Andreas Fault plate boundary. These events include the Landers, Hector Mine and Napa earthquakes. Several of the quakes were unexpected, rattling areas thought seismically quiet. A closer look at one of the surprise events, the magnitude-7.2 El Mayor-Cucapah earthquake, showed that small...

George Kennedy, star of "Cool Hand Luke" and the 'Naked Gun' movies, has died at the age of 91 ... TMZ has learned. George's grandson Cory Schenkel says Kennedy died Sunday morning at 4:30 AM in Boise, ID. He says his grandfather had been in failing health ever since his wife Joan died a little over a year ago. George had been under hospice care for the past month. Kennedy won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 1968 for "Cool Hand Luke." He also starred in all 3 of the 'Naked Gun' flicks, "Airport 1975," "Earthquake" and many many more....

Users who download the app will be sending data to scientists when an earthquake as small as a magnitude 5 hits. By harvesting information from hundreds of phones closest to the earthquake, scientists will be able to test a computer system that could, in the future, dispatch early warnings that shaking is seconds or minutes away to people farther away from the earthquake’s origin. For instance, if a quake started in San Bernardino, cell phones there could register the quake and quickly help send warnings to smartphone users in Los Angeles. "This is a citizen science project," said Richard Allen,...

At 11:04. Anyone else feel it?

By Monica Crowley - The Washington Times - Wednesday, February 10, 2016 New Hampshire has a way of dishing out political reversals of fortune, and this week proved the Granite State hasn’t lost its touch. This time, however, it was the Republican establishment that incurred its wrath. The voters are in open revolt. The New Hampshire primary involved high stakes for the Iowa victors, Ted Cruz, Donald Trump and Marco Rubio. But it was New Hampshire’s unsentimental humbling of the establishment candidates — Gov. John Kasich excepted — that is the story, along with the big win by the ultimate...

Clusters of tiny earthquakes that happen every three years could help to signal when the next big one will hit Japan, researchers report in Science1. Small, subtle quakes happen in many places where a slab of sea floor dives beneath a continent, such as in the US Pacific Northwest or off the coast of Chile. But the study of seismic activity in Japan is the first to show that they happen in regular episodes, and that those events can precede larger earthquakes. If the same patterns hold in other earthquake-prone regions, they could improve seismic risk estimates there, too. Related...

Three people were arrested Tuesday, Xiao Bo-ren, the Tainan government's legal affairs secretary, told CNN. All are former executives of the real estate development company that built Tainan's 17-story Weiguan Golden Dragon tower, which collapsed when the magnitude-6.4 tremor hit early Saturday. Lin Ming-hui, former chairman of the now defunct Weiguan company, and two other former executives -- Chang Kui-an and Cheng Chin-kui -- face charges of professional negligence resulting in death. The ruins of the toppled high-rise are the most visible evidence of the massive quake, which killed at least 40 people in the normally quiet city of 1.9...

In Japan and areas like the Pacific Northwest where megathrust earthquakes are common, scientists may be able to better forecast large quakes based on periodic increases and decreases in the rate of slow, quiet slipping along the fault. This hope comes from a new study by Japanese and UC Berkeley seismologists, looking at the more than 1,000-kilimeter-long fault off northeast Japan where the devastating 2011 Tohoku-oki earthquake originated, generating a tsunami that killed thousands. There, the Pacific Plate is trundling under the Japan plate, not only causing megaquakes like the magnitude 9 in 2011, but giving rise to a chain...

Hundreds of people are feared trapped in collapsed buildings after a 6.4 magnitude earthquake struck Taiwan. 'Multiple' buildings - including at least one residential block - are said to have fallen following the quake which shook the island at about 4am on Saturday. Reports emerging suggest Tainan, on the south-west coast, was the worst affected, with pictures of buildings partially or completely destroyed circulating on social media, while video footage shows rescue workers wading through water after the mains burst.

Spurred by renewed fears of the fabled “Big One” shattering the West Coast, the Obama administration on Tuesday promoted stronger earthquake-preparedness efforts as part of a first-of-its-kind White House summit. Private foundation grants will fund new research at universities in California and Washington state, the Forest Service will streamline the placement of seismic monitoring stations and a presidential order will tighten standards for new federal buildings.

The January 30, 2016 M 7.2 earthquake beneath the Kamchatka Peninsula of Russia occurred as the result of oblique-normal faulting at a depth of 180 km. At the location of this earthquake, the Pacific plate is moving towards the west-northwest with respect to the North America and Eurasia plates at a rate of approximately 77 mm/yr. Note that some authors divide this region into several microplates that together define the relative motions between the larger Pacific, North America and Eurasia plates; these include the Okhotsk and Amur microplates that are respectively part of North America and Eurasia. The depth and...