SUMATRA QUAKE REVISED TO 9.0 MAG

usgs ^

[Brian Mosely]

Magnitude 9.0 - OFF THE WEST COAST OF NORTHERN SUMATRA
2004 December 26 00:58:50 UTC

Preliminary Earthquake Report
U.S. Geological Survey, National Earthquake Information Center
World Data Center for Seismology, Denver

A great earthquake occurred at 00:58:50 (UTC) on Sunday, December 26, 2004. The magnitude 9.0 event has been located OFF THE WEST COAST OF NORTHERN SUMATRA. (This event has been reviewed by a seismologist.)

Magnitude		9.0
Date-Time	Sunday, December 26, 2004 at 00:58:50 (UTC) = Coordinated Universal Time Sunday, December 26, 2004 at 6:58:50 AM = local time at epicenter
Location	3.298°N, 95.779°E
Depth	10 km (6.2 miles) set by location program
Region		OFF THE WEST COAST OF NORTHERN SUMATRA
Distances	250 km (155 miles) SSE of Banda Aceh, Sumatra, Indonesia 320 km (200 miles) W of Medan, Sumatra, Indonesia 1260 km (780 miles) SSW of BANGKOK, Thailand 1605 km (1000 miles) NW of JAKARTA, Java, Indonesia
	Location Uncertainty	horizontal +/- 9.2 km (5.7 miles); depth fixed by location program
Parameters	Nst=157, Nph=157, Dmin=>999 km, Rmss=1.35 sec, Gp= 29°, M-type=moment magnitude (Mw), Version=9
Source	USGS NEIC (WDCS-D)
	Event ID	usslav
Felt Reports	At least 3,000 people killed in Sri Lanka, 2,300 in India, 2,000 in Indonesia, 289 in Thailand, 42 in Malaysia, 8 in Somalia and 2 in Bangladesh by tsunamis. Tsunamis also occurred on the coasts of Maldives and Cocos Island. At least 200 people killed, buildings destroyed or damaged in the Banda Aceh area, Sumatra. Felt widely in Sumatra. Also felt in Bangladesh, India, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore and Thailand. This is now the fourth largest earthquake in the world since 1900 and is the largest since the 1964 Prince William Sound, Alaska earthquake.

Today's shallow, thrust-type earthquake occurred off the west coast of northern Sumatra at the interface between the India and Burma plates. In this region, the Burma plate is characterized by significant strain partitioning due to oblique convergence of the India and Australia plates to the west and the Sunda and Eurasian plates to the east. Off the west coast of northern Sumatra, the India plate is moving in a northeastward direction at about 5 cm per year relative to the Burma plate. Preliminary locations of larger aftershocks following today's earthquake show that approximately 1000 km of the plate boundary slipped as a result of the earthquake. Aftershocks are distributed along much of the shallow plate boundary between northern Sumatra (approximately 3 degrees north) to near Andaman Island (at about 14 degrees north).

[Domestic Church]

"This won't necessarily lead to much of...anything.


Thanks for the panic quelling;)

[Dog Gone]

Actually, as it was a shallow earthquake, were it to happen on dry land in an unpopulated area (Sahara desert, or Antarctics- as long as the ice sheets do not slide) there would be no tsunamis and very little loss of life, as the damage would be mostly local in nature.

Incredibly shallow by earthquake standards. But if this had happened on land, say in Los Angeles, the death toll would have been at least as high.

[Quix]

Love the Seattle area. Loved ones there.

But I figure between the Juan de Fuca and all the volcanoes . . . it's likely to get interesting.

[commonguymd]

Good news.

[ProudVet77]

I did some fact checking and you are correct. I can't find any reference to any British use of the base. The Island has a small detachment of Royal Navy and Royal Marines for administrative purposes but nothing else. I would be surprised though if Royal Navy ships did not make a port of call there. I know we used Portsmouth in England when I was on a DE/FF. They ran the base, we just stopped to R&R for a few days and to get ships stores.

[Salgak]

A big quakes always does. Not by very much, but detectable and measurable. Newton's Laws of Motion apply to planets as well as smaller bodies. . .

[Quix]

Thanks.

[Palladin]

Prayers going up for all our pople on Diego Garcia.

I have a bad feeling about that place.

Hope I'm wrong.

[Quix]

I don't even recall when or where I read it.

I'm not that concerned about it at all. Just curious.

[Quix]

Good.

[Strategerist]

Overall the number of M 7+ quakes this year is still below average, and it would still take quite a lot of them in the last 5 days of the year just to reach average.

And if you look at, say, the Smithsonian Volcanism site, worldwide, there's about as much volcanic activity as one would expect.

Mauna Loa erupts a lot and it wouldn't exactly be a surprise if it erupts again.

And Mt. St. Helens, when all is said and done, is just one volcano. Seems to count for about 100 volcanoes because it happens to be in the lower 48 states, but it's fairly quietly still dome-building.

The basic point is lots of quakes and lots of volcanoes..including catastrophic ones...are....normal.

Especially if you take a long term geologic view. What really leads to a lot of the popularity of apocalyptics is people desperately trying to convince themselves that "normal" is no acitivity, no catastrophes, no chance of suddenly dying for no aparent reason, and everything else is "abnormal."

[nhoward14]

Good news!

Pentagon Duty Officer Cheryl Irwin told FOX News that the National Military Command Center has received no reports of any damage to the Diego Garcia Naval Support Facility, off the southern coast of India. The Navy is considering whether and what kind of aid to offer to local governments in the region, said Navy Press Duty Officer Lt. Pauline Pimetel.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,142566,00.html

[nhoward14]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,142566,00.html

Pentagon Duty Officer Cheryl Irwin told FOX News that the National Military Command Center has received no reports of any damage to the Diego Garcia Naval Support Facility, off the southern coast of India. The Navy is considering whether and what kind of aid to offer to local governments in the region, said Navy Press Duty Officer Lt. Pauline Pimetel.

[Quix]

Unless a sub was near an undersea cliff wall near a quake, how would a big quake hazard a sub?

[prairiebreeze]

that's good news

[tubebender]

The 5 PM news on KTVU out of Oakland said this quake shook for 5 minutes. That would do huge damage to most populated areas...

[Quix]

Lived through lots of 5's and a few 6's in Taipei. Thankfully the epicenters were quite some distance.

Still a bit of a rude wakeup.

[Dashing Dasher]

The Loony Lefties are blaming Kyoto.

It's Bush's fault, indeed.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

When I was on Shemya they had a contingency plan for every contingency, including a tsunami. I thought is was mildly amusing until I gave it a couple seconds thought. I am sure that Diego Garcia has a tsunami plan, exactly how effective it will prove to be remains to be seen.

[Quix]

I virtually never listen to Art Bell contrary to public perceptions. Pretty close to certain it wasn't him or his website.