Strong Quake Hits Near Indonesian Island

St.Cloud Times online edition ^ | Apr 10, 8:10 AM EDT | AP

[Jackknife]

HONG KONG (AP) -- A strong earthquake hit Sunday near the Indonesian island of Sumatra, Hong Kong seismologists said. The 6.8-magnitude tremor's epicenter was about 74 miles southwest of Padang, a city in western Sumatra, the Hong Kong Observatory said. The quake was recorded at 6:35 a.m. EDT, it said.

Sumatra was devastated by the Dec. 26 tsunami and earthquake that killed nearly 183,000 people in 11 countries and left another 129,000 missing.

Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, was the hardest hit, with at least 126,000 people killed and more than 500,000 left homeless, mostly in Aceh province on Sumatra.

[bd476]

P.O.E. thank you for the link to the story about shocks:

"...One prominent study published in the journal Nature on March 17 suggested with remarkable accuracy that stresses were accumulating on adjacent portions of the Sumatra Trench. Something like this was likely to occur — perhaps within weeks, predicted John McCloskey and his partners at the University of Ulster-Coleraine in Northern Ireland.

If anything, they underestimated how wild things are getting off the coast of Sumatra, where several plates of the Earth's crust grind and dive beneath each other in a geologic wrestling match that researchers call a subduction zone.

'Subduction zone earthquakes are often coupled,' McCloskey reported. 'An earthquake of magnitude 7-7.5 would seem to represent the greatest immediate threat...' "

Mar 29, 2005 Scientists Debate Quake Vs. Aftershock



Map highlights places affected by March 28 earthquake, includes
tectonic plate boundaries and Dec. 26 quake epicenter. (AP Graphic)

[bd476]

Read the excerpt from the story P.O.E. just linked:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1380807/posts?page=61#61

[Sender]

I missed that special. However I remember the ash from Pinatubo raining down like gray snow and smothering everything. Imagine 1000 times that. That's a supervolcano.

[oceanperch]

I guess that earthquake lull is over.
: )

[onedoug]

Subduction. Actually nothing unusual in the most active such zone on Earth.

God bless those there who fear Him.

[P.O.E.]

Another link to that movie, with clips and preview pics: http://tv.yahoo.com/feature/supervolcano.html

[thoughtomator]

Why would they buy one when they get so many for free? =)

[bd476]

Earthquakes or after shocks are probably going to continue for quite a long while in the region.

[Kozak]

It appears that there will be a time when that string of islands will no longer have water separating them from the mainland.

or there won't be any islands...

[Socratic]

 or there won't be any islands...

 

So true.

[Destro]

No brake since Krakatoa.

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

I'm waiting for the volcanoes over there to start popping. Then we will have problems.

[Experiment 6-2-6]

There are way too many quakes out here for my comfort. I think I'll move back to California..

[bd476]

LOL, I sure did not mean to encourage you to leave your tropical island paradise. On the other hand, it will be great to have one more FReeper in the Golden State.

[Jackknife]

Earthquakes or after shocks are probably going to continue for quite a long while in the region.

I think that we are only seeing the beginning of what's to come.

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

Krakatoa exploded when it's volcanic flank collapsed in to the partially emptied submarine caldera, allowing seawater to contact the magma, resulting in a massive steam explosion.

A simiar but far more masisve flank collapse occured on the Greek volcanic island of Thera (Santorin volcano) in 1650 BC. An estimated 15 cubic miles of seawater poured into the exposed submarine caldera. Tsunami inundation of nearby Crete exceeded 50 meters.

Earthquakes are bad news. But supervolcanoes are very bad news.

[Jackknife]

Krakatoa exploded when it's volcanic flank collapsed in to the partially emptied submarine caldera, allowing seawater to contact the magma, resulting in a massive steam explosion.

According to the PBS special the other night, the steam theory was debunked. Their scientists said that the initial eruptions allowed cooler magma to escape, leaving space for very hot magma to enter the chamber. When the hot and cool magma swirled and combined, the gases that were created caused the enormous explosion.

Again, this is just what I saw the other night. I have no idea other than that.

[Jackknife]

A new volcano is growing where Indonesia's Krakatoa blew itself to bits in 1883, generating tsunamis that killed more than 36,000.

[colgin]

I don't know how much more the poor people of Tsunami can handle.

[Eastbound]

Another pix: