Rotation of the Earth’s crust causes extension along the Lewis and Clark Fault Zone (LCFZ) and contraction in Sandpoint, Idaho, triggering earthquakes. Credit: Daisuke Kobayashi, University of Idaho, Moscow
Posted on 12/19/2015 10:02:24 AM PST by JimSEA
Earthquakes in Idaho's panhandle are usually caused by the Earth's crust pulling apart. So why were earthquakes on 24 April pushing the crust together?
Last April, a swarm of earthquakes shook the ground near Sandpoint, Idaho. Unused to shaking, Sandpoint’s residents took notice. So did local media, widely reporting on the events. But it wasn’t the size or location of the earthquakes that surprised scientists.
Sandpoint lies along the Lewis and Clark Fault Zone, and previous earthquakes in the region were caused when the Earth’s crust pulled apart, which geologists call extension. But the earthquakes that struck on 24 April were caused by the Earth pushing together, Daisuke Kobayashi of the University of Idaho, Moscow, reported Monday in a poster at the 2015 American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in San Francisco.
The Earth Pulls Apart
Crustal extension formed the region of the United States that stretches from New Mexico to California in the south and Utah to Nevada in the north and is known as the Basin and Range. In the southwestern portion of the area, abrupt changes in elevation—rows of steep mountains rising out of a flat landscape—characterize the terrain.
(Excerpt) Read more at eos.org ...
Rotation of the Earth’s crust causes extension along the Lewis and Clark Fault Zone (LCFZ) and contraction in Sandpoint, Idaho, triggering earthquakes. Credit: Daisuke Kobayashi, University of Idaho, Moscow
Obviously global warming.
Or fracking.
Basin and range geology of the northern part.
Bush’s fault
Seems to me like a bunch of expansion can cause contraction in the areas between the expansions.
Outward pressure from the growing supervolcano in Yellowstone, perhaps?
A lot of earthquakes are plates slipping past each other and also one under another.
Dr. Peter Venkman: This city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions.
Mayor: What do you mean, “biblical”?
Dr Ray Stantz: What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath of God type stuff.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Exactly.
Dr Ray Stantz: Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!
Dr. Egon Spengler: Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes...
Winston Zeddemore: The dead rising from the grave!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!
No this time it’s Lewis and Clark fault
Indeed, you can see mountain building as well as spreading in Idaho and adjacent areas ( contraction ).
I was wondering that as I read this. It’s really interesting that it is contracting.
Hope it’s not that lava dome under Yellowstone....
OMG! Not just the normal wear and tear on the earth. Who would have thunk.
“No this time it’s Lewis and Clark fault”
You crack me up.
Some of this is post-glacial rebound. We sure felt those little bumps here near Athol (the town named by someone with a speech impediment), Idaho.
“Rotation of the Earth’s crust “
How does the surface of a sphere rotate? Should this say “rotation of the [whatever] plate?”
Daisuke Kobayashi, University of Idaho, Moscow
Wow, talk about geographic confusion!
In MA we have 4 towns named for Gov Endicott Peabody:
Endicott
Peabody
Marblehead
And
Athol
Magma rising.
how does the earths surface rotate faster then the inside?
In frictionless space, you would think the whole thing would rotate at the same speed.
But my newest theory is that the earths crust moves back and forth like a swinging door, in relation to the center.
This would account for the changing magnetic poles.
IT would also account for some massive extinctions, since at the peak of each swing, the rotation stops, leaving no magnetic field to protect the planet from the solar wind.
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