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).

[BARLF]

I am about 60 miles from New Madrid. Not good news for me either.:(

[prophetic]

You mean HDX and RDX explosives?

[Quix]

I'd expect such a relationship, too.

Goodness, called "correct" on such a thread. Gwarsh. I'd better sit down. Oh, I am sitting down.

Wellll, be careful calling me correct. You must have a reputation you need to protect! LOL.

[Dog Gone]

With a 9.0 quake, a 7.0 might be an expected aftershock. I don't know how most ordinary construction stands up to that.

Fortunately, the epicenter is not onshore and that means a lot, but still...

[Quix]

I remain unconvinced that you are a very good mind-reader or shrink regarding such people.

I think you are 10's of orders of magnitude better at assessing and discussing quakes.

[Fishtalk]

This is a great website to look at if you think you've had a tremor.

Well I went and had a look. What a great site! I never knew such a thing existed.

Anyway, I did find out some interesting stuff. Allowing that I know nothing about earthquakes except they are fascinating.

A problem I have is I don't know the exact date I felt what I believe to have been a tremor because, well I didn't write it down in any sort of journal or anything. My memory's not completely gone but I would think the exact date is important.

I DO know it was a few days before the Alaskan earthquake.

So checking this site, I find the Alaskan earthquake was on 12/23/04. AND there was earthquake activity in an area known as the "Mid-Atlantic Ridge" on 12/20/04, which was a Monday and I *think* might have been the date I felt that tremor. Alas, the "epicenter" of this activity was somewhere near Brazil.

I note that this Mid-Atlantic Ridge does run up the Atlantic ocean and is not very far from Delaware.

I also noted that the seismic center in Virginia, not so very far from me, reported tremors on that date.

Thus, I'm going with it. I KNOW I felt the earth move that night. So did my toilet and so did my septic tank.

And how about the dog thing? We've had this dog for almost three years now and she's NEVER done that in the middle of the night. She was almost freaking out.

I have read that animals act weirdly before an earthquake but always pooh-poohed the notion because, how on earth would an animal sense such a thing?

I know it happened though. It was very quick but the sequence of events, to borrow from John Kerry, is SEARED into my mind, you should smile.

[Palladin]

Thanks for that report. As usual, our Navy men and women will go off to help others in need.

Thank you, Lord!

[Arizona Carolyn]

I thought it was around Seattle -- but that was last summer, I think the time may have passed. I do think I heard something about California, too, but you always hear earthquake predictions about California... I always got nervous (when we lived there) when it had been very cold and then we had an uncommonly warm spell (which is exactly how it was when Northridge was hit)...

[Quix]

THANKS MUCH.

When I was traffic checker at the comcen in Taipei during the Nam war, a top secret came across about us leasing Diego Garcia during the early negotiations with Britain. I've had a soft spot in my heart for the place ever since for some silly reason.

[SlowBoat407]

When I was traffic checker at the comcen in Taipei during the Nam war, a top secret came across about us leasing Diego Garcia during the early negotiations with Britain.

Sure hope it's been declassified since then.

[Quix]

No, this was a very specific prediction of a 7 or above quake I think South of Bakersfield and likely to be significantly East of the coast, if my memory is right.

If I'm responding to the right post?!

[NCC-1701]

There was an 8.something a week or so ago around Australia and New Zealand. Now this 9.0 monster. I pray for all those who were touched by these twin disasters. they say bad things occur in threes. Let's all hope and pray that this is no part of that trend.

[Quix]

Yeah!

Actually it didn't contain a lot of info and the key fact for classification seemed to be that we were interested in it at all.

Given that we have a base there, that issue has long been unclassified.

[Dashing Dasher]

Bookmark the site and if it happens again - you know where to go for more information.

As a red-stater living in a quaking blue state, I am also fascinated by quakes and like to see how many we can feel vs. how many happen.

I don't wake up for anything under 6.0 (it must be my tempur-pedic mattress) - but will feel a 5.X if I'm awake and moving around.

[nuconvert]

? And the apology part for your misdirected outburst?

[Quix]

You may know . . . Most TS traffic seemed to have to do with golf schedules of admirals LOL.

[Quix]

I apologize for being lazy about not directing it more fittingly. Sorry for any and all offense.

[Quix]

BTW, I consider use of "hijacked" equally misdirected.

[nuconvert]

I never used that word either.

Thanks. Apology accepted.

[brooklin]

Sounds like you are refering to zeta talk. That is as big a tinfoil site as you will ever find.