A view of Earthquakes from the South Pole
Original Image with Clickable Details
I just thought this was a Way Cool view of the quakes. And especially with that symmetry of one in the Sandwich Islands, one “near” Perth Australia, and the action in Chile… I just wondered what it would look like from this point of view…
Rampant Sense of Symmetry
Just because it “completes the set”, here is the North Pole view too:
North Polar Earthquake Map
Original Image with Clickable Details
If you click the links to the originals you can not only ‘click through’ to any given area or quake, but by clicking on the little blue diamonds you can rotate the globe to different points of view. It’s kind of fun…
Australia Anyone?
For example, here is an Australia Centric point of view:
Australia Centric Quake Map
Musings from the Chiefio 
It would appear that there was a 6.2 in Papua New Guinea too:
Earthquake Details
Magnitude
6.2
Date-Time
Saturday, April 17, 2010 at 23:15:24 UTC
Sunday, April 18, 2010 at 09:15:24 AM at epicenter
Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones
Location
6.683°S, 147.307°E
Depth
70.7 km (43.9 miles)
Region
EASTERN NEW GUINEA REG, PAPUA NEW GUINEA
Distances
35 km (20 miles) ENE of Lae, New Guinea, PNG
220 km (135 miles) ESE of Goroka, New Guinea, PNG
310 km (190 miles) N of PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea
2385 km (1480 miles) NNW of BRISBANE, Queensland, Australia
Location Uncertainty
horizontal +/- 12.7 km (7.9 miles); depth +/- 4.7 km (2.9 miles)
Parameters
NST=427, Nph=520, Dmin=923 km, Rmss=1.08 sec, Gp= 11°,
M-type=teleseismic moment magnitude (Mw), Version=9
Source
USGS NEIC (WDCS-D)
Event ID
us2010veb7
Two days ago…. Well, better late than never to notice…
This is probably off-topic, but. . .
Total speculation time:
In all the reading I’ve done about the El Niño Southern Oscillation, I’ve never read anywhere about where the heat comes from. The maps always show the “normal” heat plume along the Equator and then the anomalous ENSO heat plume coming out of the west and very much enlarged.
I’d always wondered if the heat wasn’t coming from something submerged. The most likely source to me seemed to be undersea vents or volcanoes, but it was just my speculation.
Then the other day, while looking at a USGS map of the Australian/SE Asian/Western Pacific area I saw the volcanic activity in Indonesia, and it impacted me that this is precisely the area where the ENSO originates.
Now, this idea doesn’t explain the periodicity of the ENSO. I realized that when it first occurred to me. But I am one of these people who think the Sun is a variable star, and I also think that the Earth has unrecognized oscillations (such as the PDO and the AO) that weren’t recognize until recently. I cannot imagine that the PDO and AO will be the last oscillations we will discover.
And if the oscillations/periodicities exist, again, what is the fundamental source of them? I suspect most of the sources are deep within the Earth. I do not ever, EVER see the surface as being the driver – just the tail end of the causality continuum.
The question DOES exist: Where does the heat energy of the ENSO come from?
Does anybody here know? I don’t.
REPLY: [ Well, the first question I’d ask is “is it heat or temperature?”. Last I looked, admittedly a while ago and not very closely, ENSO was a temperature effect. You had a ‘hot spot’ that changed location. You can have changes of temperature without changes of heat. Just slop some relatively warmer or cooler water from depth to the surface or from once side of the ocean to another. (Or even have a wind evaporate or rain condense some water). So before I’d run off searching for “the heat” I’d want to know “is it heat or temperature I’m looking to find?”.
FWIW, in my first ever quake thread we talked a bit about a variety of odd things (and with some very cool graphics too). In:
we explored the question of quakes as a result of solar wobble, for example. One of the interesting bits was a link to a paper:
Click to access IanwilsonForum2008.pdf
That shows a link between the solar wobble and the PDO (among others). The basic thesis is that there is a “Spin Orbit Coupling” between the various big things in the solar system such that as we all mutually orbit, our spins slightly change. This causes the water in the giant bathtub of the Pacific to slop a bit, and that gives us things like the PDO (and one might assert ENSO on a faster smaller scale as a speculation). Or it could just be some periodicity of the winds and global atmospheric oscillation. There are plenty of things out there to oscillate and the place is big enough for the period to be measured in years.
FWIW, I’ve seen some evidence that the “hot 1934” was a “cool 1934” on the other side of the planet and some for an oscillator between the northern and southern hemispheres. So all ENSO really takes is some ‘wobble’ in the global air or water masses.
That’s all I’ve got. Maybe someone else will have more / better. -E.M.Smith ]
Hey Boss;
Just downloaded/installed a new version of OO for Mac on my (wife’s intel) imac.
They have a new approach ‘Aqua’ which does not require the ‘x10’ kludge, apparently.
Actually she installed it, just dragged it into the apps folder…
Before download, I was asked to choose between powerpc and intel, so I think they support ‘da ole kine’ .
No telling whether the chart thing in the new version is better or has lost key features, or both…
OK, back to oork…
RR
That’s the typical Mac install approach. Drag and drop… the whole X install thing just smelled of non-Mac kludge…
I’ll give it a try “in a while”. (For now I have things that work, and things to do with them, so it’s not a high priority… but “soon”… )
Looks like the quake action has moved back to N. America (with a bunch of 4.x from Alaska to the Caribbean) and Tonga area ( a 5.9 ) … with another aftershock (4.7) in Chile.
Round and round she goes…
@ feet2thefire and E.M.,
Re explanation of heat cycling in ENSO – I remembered this post from Bob Tisdale made a lot of sense to me:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2010/02/la-nina-underappreciated-portion-of.html
A possible 6 in the Straits of Gibraltar.
http://www.iris.edu/seismon/bigmap/index.phtml
If you click on the links to one of the graphs above, then click on the ‘box’ for any given quake, you get the details. It looks likes USGS thinks the Gibratar quake was a 4.0 or at least there was a recent one that is a 4:
Magnitude
4.0
Date-Time
Thursday, April 22, 2010 at 01:23:56 UTC
Thursday, April 22, 2010 at 01:23:56 AM at epicenter
Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones
Location
35.171°N, 6.410°W
Depth
10 km (6.2 miles) set by location program
Region
STRAIT OF GIBRALTAR
Distances
85 km (55 miles) SW of Tanger, Morocco
135 km (85 miles) NNE of RABAT, Morocco
150 km (95 miles) S of Cadiz, Spain
180 km (110 miles) NW of Fes, Morocco
Location Uncertainty
horizontal +/- 16.8 km (10.4 miles); depth fixed by location program
Parameters
NST= 11, Nph= 11, Dmin=519.3 km, Rmss=1.05 sec, Gp=173°,
M-type=body wave magnitude (Mb), Version=6
Source
USGS NEIC (WDCS-D)
Event ID
us2010vjah
Like that link you posted quite a lot, BTW.
Oh, and it’s also possible we’re looking at two different quakes. On that link the “6” is marked as ‘in the last 2 weeks’ where USGS has what looks like a recent 4 ish sized one. I’ve generally not been watching closely things under 6.5 or so. After the ‘several sevens’ I’d raised my threshold for posting to “7 or just under it” and could easily have ignored a 6 in Gibraltar a week and a half ago.
One of my complaints about the USGS site is that they only keep the history up for 1 week on the map. It’s just TOO easy to miss something if you don’t look often. So a 6 happens, and 5 days later someone else notices it. You now have 1 to 2 days to capture the map before it’s gone (depending on what time zone which event or person is working in…) Very easy to miss the smaller and even medium sized things while looking at some bigger thing…
Somehow in all the market excitement I missed that 2 days ago we had a 7.2 quake in Sumatra…
Earthquake Details
Magnitude
7.2
Date-Time
Sunday, May 09, 2010 at 05:59:42 UTC
Sunday, May 09, 2010 at 12:59:42 PM at epicenter
Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones
Location
3.766°N, 96.022°E
Depth
45 km (28.0 miles) set by location program
Region
NORTHERN SUMATRA, INDONESIA
Distances
200 km (125 miles) SW of Lhokseumawe, Sumatra, Indonesia
215 km (130 miles) SSE of Banda Aceh, Sumatra, Indonesia
635 km (395 miles) W of KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia
1620 km (1010 miles) NW of JAKARTA, Java, Indonesia
Location Uncertainty
horizontal +/- 3.7 km (2.3 miles); depth fixed by location program
Parameters
NST=490, Nph=490, Dmin=191.6 km, Rmss=0.93 sec, Gp= 22°,
M-type=teleseismic moment magnitude (Mw), Version=A
Source
USGS NEIC (WDCS-D)
Event ID
us2010wbaq