California hits 843 quakes and El Salvador gets a 7.3
Most of the time California runs in the 300-400 range on total quakes over 2 weeks. I’ve seen 500 ish before. 800+ is ‘way strange’ in my experience. Add in that El Salvador had a 7.3 and it looks to me like “something is up” on the Pacific Coast of North and Central America. Check your kits, buy some extra food, and fill the tank on the car. Leave the car on the driveway if you usually park in the garage, for the next couple of weeks.
Static captures of images:
Quakes 27 Aug 2012 California 843 quakes
We’ve got 843 quakes on that map (most of them very tiny). The one down near the Salton Sea is a 5.5 (but has a LOT of small quakes around it). Remember that that is a spreading zone. It is where Baja California is being ripped from the North American land mass. It was filled in by sediment from the Grand Canyon, but is about 9 miles deep of ‘sandy stuff’ and debris, not hard rock.
Some months back (perhaps a year or two?) there were several 7.x quakes down in / near Peru / Chile. Then some up near Columbia. It looks to me like the energy is getting further north…
Baja:
Quakes Baja 28 Aug 2012 245_30
UPDATE 31 Aug 2012
Here’s a copy of California over 1000 quakes and a close up on the Salton Sea area showing it is the bulk of them at 748:
Quakes California at 1035 quakes 31 Aug 2012
Quakes Salton Sea 758 quakes 31 Augt 2012 116-33
North America:
Quakes 27 Aug 2012 N_America
Magnitude 7.3 – OFFSHORE EL SALVADOR
This webpage is being phased out and is no longer maintained. Please use the new Real-time Earthquake Map instead and update your bookmark. See Quick Tips & User Guide.2012 August 27 04:37:20 UTC
This event has been reviewed by a seismologist.
Magnitude 7.3
Date-TimeMonday, August 27, 2012 at 04:37:20 UTC
Sunday, August 26, 2012 at 10:37:20 PM at epicenter
Time of Earthquake in other Time ZonesLocation 12.278°N, 88.528°W
Depth 20.3 km (12.6 miles)
Region OFFSHORE EL SALVADOR
Distances 111 km (68 miles) S of Puerto El Triunfo, El Salvador
118 km (73 miles) S of Usulutan, El Salvador
123 km (76 miles) S of San Rafael Oriente, El Salvador
133 km (82 miles) S of Santiago de Maria, El Salvador
Location Uncertainty horizontal +/- 16.1 km (10.0 miles); depth +/- 4.2 km (2.6 miles)
Parameters NST=345, Nph=345, Dmin=130.2 km, Rmss=1.21 sec, Gp= 65°,
M-type=(unknown type), Version=D
SourceMagnitude: USGS NEIC (WDCS-D)
Location: USGS NEIC (WDCS-D)Event ID usc000c7yw
Note: The USGS is now putting up a red border box; warning folks to move to their new interactive pages (as these are deprecated). Eventually they will just pull the plug and these postings will all fail to load images that are live.
The interactive stuff is interesting, but you can’t embed images from it the way you can with the old stuff, so I don’t really have a choice (yet). Maybe I’ll figure out how to imbed live versions of the ‘new stuff’ eventually… but don’t be surprised if ‘someday’ the Quake postings just fail.
The saved static images will still exist, but all the live images below will fail.
Global Views
30 Days:
30 Day Global View
Recent:
Quakes Last 7 Days Live
Northern Hemisphere
North Polar Earthquake Map
Original Image with Clickable Details
North America
Quakes North America Live Map
Southern Hemisphere
A view of Earthquakes from the South Pole
Original Image with Clickable Details
Asia and Russia
Asia Quake Map
Original Image with clickable areas
Australia / New Zealand
This is a live map of the Australia / Indonesia / New Zealand area:
Australia / Indonesia / New Zealand Quake Map
Original with clickable regions to zoom in
California Map
Action Closer to Me
As I live in California, it makes it easier for me if I keep them in the list where I can see what’s shaking near me.
Here is an alternative view of things with the fault lines highlighted:
California Quakes with fault lines
San Franciso Bay and nearby
San Jose Bay Area close up view
Salton Sea:
Salton Sea area live map
Original Image
Baja:
Baja California / Gulf of California
Map of Plates
You can see it is where plates collide here:
Plates Of The World
Original Image, and with other language options.
Some Volcano Stuff
This page:
http://pangea.stanford.edu/~dsinnett/Pages/Links.html has a nice collection of links to volcano monitor pages. Just click the pictures for the different volcano observatories.
The Smithsonian page:
http://www.volcano.si.edu/reports/usgs/
USGS Page listing recent major quakes:
Musings from the Chiefio 
Aren’t earthquake swarms an indicator for rising magma? There are a number of old vulcanos in Kalifornia. I’d be interested if a change in 3He/4He ratio was detected?
@Hugo M:
Yes, they are, and yes, we have them… In fact, they are in an arc just a bit up the way from that Salton Sea point. The same “trench” that is the extension of the Gulf of California (though filled with silt) that makes that area, continues up to Death Valley where it is spreading / sinking. A bit further up you get things like Mammoth Mountain / Lakes (i.e. a Super Volcano) and even up to Mono Lake you have volcanic features. (Some of them, down closer to Death Valley, have been active in the last couple of thousand years, so are not really “old” in the sense of “dead”).
From there, the spreading zone / rift / defect heads toward the coast. 2 Million years ago or so it made the volcano that has since eroded down into the Sutter Buttes. About 100 miles north of there are more volcanoes. Lassen and Shasta. Lassen last erupted in 1914 and when I was at the summit in the 1970s it was still smoking with sulfur deposits and hotter than normal surface rocks. For Shasta, it’s been longer, but it still considered “ready to rumble”…
North of there are more volcanoes, but from Lassen on north they are more subduction artifacts than rift artifacts.
The “bottom line” is that anywhere from the Salton Sea on up to the Oregon Border can have volcanoes. Just the “how far inland” and “rift of subduction” changes…
Going south from the Salton Sea there are plenty of active volcanoes in Mexico along the Gulf of California. It isn’t odd to think of a volcano sprouting in the Salton Sea area. What is odd is that it has NOT happened in a very long time… Perhaps all that wet silt keeps things from reaching the surface…
One thing I failed to notice until you pointed it out is that the swarm are all very shallow (relatively speaking).
And another thing I had not even thought about until Hugo mentioned it was the connection with Volcanoes!
So it is going to be interesting to see if anything further occurs in the area – or it just sinks back into solitude for another 50 years or so.
(SarcOn) As with AGW, AGT –Anthroprogenic Global Tilting — is increasing at an alarming rate and must be delt with immediately by vast enpendatures by Developed Countries in compensation to Undeveloped Countries; the inhabitants of Developed Countries -though less in numbers- are far greater in individual and total weight, density, and mass, than people in Undeveloped Countries. The Secretary General of the United Nations must be called upon to manage a Super Duper Fat Fund to relieve this curse and remove it from the world scene! Only through great sacrifice and immediate action will even a small percentage of mankind be saved by the end of the current century. Act Now! Save the planet! Make the world’s democracies pay through the nose for all they have done. Stop earthquakes and volcanoes everywhere! We must act NOW!(SarcOff)
(Is it me? Did you feel the earth move too?)
“A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!”
@Pascvaks: Good joke!, but the following it is not a joke:
Another possible effect of the strong ‘ring’ currents induction under the Arctic ocean may manifest itself as an electro-magnetic brake on the magma vortex. As the angular momentum of the Earth’s rotation must be conserved, slowdown of the Hudson Bay vortex and increased velocity in the stronger Siberian one, will be reflected on the Earth’s rotation . If so than this would be registered in the ‘Length of Day’ – LOD. This indeed is the case as there is a close correlation between LOD and the Earth’s (z) field intensity as calculated for the North Pole. As the Hudson Bay weakens the effect may eventually disappear.
As already stated effect of the solar storms appear to be mainly on the Hudson Bay vortex, where the strength of magnetic field is falling, it is likely that in the foreseeable future (century scale), this vortex may weaken so much and eventually disappear, in which case the magnetic pole would be found in the Central Siberia (64-65N, 107-110E).
This may have profound consequences for the Earth’s magnetic field, having a bulge in the East hemisphere with opposite pole at ~ 60S, 140E).
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/MF.htm
I made an attempt to calculate tidal effects on the Earth’s outer core by combining gravitational and magnetic factors. The result I found was somewhat unexpected as shown in the lower graph:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/Sun-Earth1.htm
No major Japan’s earthquakes were listed for the 1900-1920 period , hence no long term implications.
E.M., Salton Sea has mud vulcanos at least. Is their gas composition monitored? I’ve seen they do monitor fumaroles at Mammuth Mountain at least, but was unsucessful to find any actual time series of helium concentrations so far.
I’ve added a static capture at the top and a live map below the California one; for the Baja / Gulf of California view. There you can see another cluster down in the middle of the Gulf of California. Right on top of the spreading line. You can also see how the ones in the Salton Sea area are very similar both in clustering and being on the spreading zone / fault.
@Hugo M:
I don’t know what monitoring is done at Salton Sea. IMHO we’ve likely got rift vulcanism going on, but about 9 miles down under the wet silt…
@Vukcevic:
Nice graph… very nice… “Correlation is not causality” but it sure can tell you where to go looking!
@Adolfo:
I’ve always thought the magnetic liquid interior of the planet ought to respond to external applied electromagnetic forces with changes of motion; now it looks like the next step of ‘what does the changed motion do’ is getting some legs…
@Pascvaks:
I didn’t feel it move, but at about 11:10 AM today I had that “slight dizzy” feeling that comes near times of quakes. Unfortunately, with the California map now at an 888 count and rising, we’re pretty much wilggley all over…
@PhilJourdan:
Look at the “Global 30 day” map up top. Notice that the North American Pacific line of quakes are all at the shallowest band they mark. Less than 30 km. (Might be interesting to look for an even more exact / shallower mapping…) The California quake lists depth at 12.6 miles, so just a bit below the bottom of the silt layers…
My “speculative” bucket is of the opinion that solar changes have caused LOD changes that are slopping the magma around in the deep layers and changing stresses on the plates; and that we’re going to get more volcanic activity and maybe even some ‘surprise’ volcanoes “like in the old days”… Just hope it’s not a “big one” like Mammoth… (But a little fountain one like we had 9000 years ago would be fun ;-)
Hmmm… A bit further north, in the hills above Bakersfield, a ‘little one’ at 3.3, but only 1.1 km deep:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/ci15205449#summary
Yeah, I know, quakes can be at any depth and when a surface block moves that can even be ‘the surface’… but still… stuff is moving and not very deep.
You can sort by depth, which I did. Everything less than 1 km is in places where I’m not fond of seeing that happen…
Don’t know what it means,though, and it may mean nothing much other than one of our blocks (that get lifted to make the mountains here) is moving a bit. But with Brawley being in the Imperial Valley (near the Salton Sea) I think that isn’t what is happening…
The California map is now at 910 quake count…
High and still rising fast… At this rate it will break 1000 by midnight…
EM, What is the chance that it is an instrument/computer bug?
I think Fort Tejon area of the San Andreas is way over due and under increasing strain as the portion south of LA is active and the north of Parkfield is moving. That Parkfield south section is glaring in its’ inactivity, and the east-west Tehachapis are showing more and more compression cracks. A couple of months ago the characteristics of the west coast quakes changed from compression breaks everywhere to movement quakes along faults. Things are in motion now. I would stay away from that area until the Fort Tejon lock up moves. pg
Talked to my in-laws last night. They said it was really shaking (constant) Sunday, but now it is just occassional jiggles. While I was talking to her, a 1.8 hit. She (my SIL) said she “heard it”, and within a couple of minutes it appeared on the USGS site (that is how I know it was a 1.8). So even the minor ones, while not easily felt, are experienced (she lives right in Brawley – Earthquake Central).
Hugo, My wife also pointed out to me the mud volcanoes. And the quakes are not far from that area. So who knows? I guess we will find out. If nothing, it will be a footnote in history.
I subscribe to no system, though I’m keenly sensitive to and interested in quakes and volcanoes; a little less so now that my daughter has left Seattle for a more ‘Great Lakes/Canadian Shield’ environment, but still very interested. Don’t have anything to contribute of value; my only observation is that it’s spastic and, regarding the Pacific Plate, tends to occassionaly ‘balance’. Big One in SW Pacific, Big One in NW Pacific, Big One in SE Pacific.. then I get more and more nervous for NE Pacific areas, I figure it’s a geological balancing act around the Ring of Fire, and when California starts acting like a pot of popcorn, I think “BIG ONE” soon?
In the ‘Two Cents’ section – I have always felt volcanoes and quakes were very much related and never could figure out why modern geology tended to regard them as apples and oranges. While some subscribe to the notion that quakes presage volcanic activity, I’m more and more of the opinion that volcanoes presage and follow quakes. Have an uneasy sense that Hawaii, is the ‘gigercounter’ of the Pacific and is telling us so much more than we’re able to understand at present. We’ll see. Maybe;-)
Phil, besides mud vulcanos Salton Sea also has a geothermal plant. Such facilities are known for their ability to trigger earthquakes. But what I’m interested in is a time series like the one acquired at Mammoth Mountain: https://137.227.239.76/lvo/activity/monitoring/helium.php .
As usual, such series do not include actual values.
Since about century, we observe an increasingly frequent series of earthquake swarms in Europe, in a region called Vogtland, centered near the town of Novy Kostel, which is now part of the Czech republic.The fumaroles there are found to vent very high concentration of CO2 and an increasing concentration of Helium-3. The geologist are quite sure that an eruption will take place, but they simply can’t predict when.
@EMSmith; looks like you have over 1,000 quakes on the California map now! Things are getting quite busy. Full moon tonight and new moon the 15th of September. Activity peaks just after the alignments. At least 4 months of increasing activity to look forward to. 8-) pg
@P.G.: It would be interesting to know if there have been any differences in altitude, as that “scar” which begins at the Gulf of California may be subsiding or the contrary, better stay away if you can way east from it. See the following article of Michele Casati:
http://translate.google.com.pe/translate?sl=it&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=es&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fdaltonsminima.altervista.org%2F%3Fp%3D22581%23comments
It is important his remarks:
Remember my recent work:
Planetary alignments from July to September 2012
Planetary configuration number 6:
August 28 to 29 input alignment Mercury-Venus-Uranus
Article citation:
conclusions
Work on my own empirical methodology for identifying time window 24/48h., Geophysical event significative at risk on a global scale.
Please note again that this new list of dates shown, plays exclusively an indication of those possible periods of risk particoloramente significant geological events on a global scale.
Time windows, and as I have repeatedly stated, in comments and articles in these years of study, must be assessed in sync with the solar dynamics that see the most striking geological phenomena occur at the end of the descent stages of the solar wind (at the end of heating phases – the name of thumb – Sw 1000 – 1500 km / s. (associated with high relative proton density), in terms of energy, with the Earth’s magnetosphere.
And from Solarham.net:
The solar X-Ray background levels are now near the C1 threshold. New Sunspots 1561, 1562 ad 1563 were numbered on Thursday. Old region 1545 from the previous rotation is now in Earth view. There will be a chance for an M-Class event on Friday
@P.G. This from our friend M.Vulcevic it is important:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/gms.htm
Philipines got a Big One with injuries and a Tsunami Warning:
Magnitude 7.6 – PHILIPPINE ISLANDS REGION.
2012 August 31 12:47:34 UTC
Magnitude 7.6
Date-Time
Friday, August 31, 2012 at 12:47:34 UTC
Friday, August 31, 2012 at 08:47:34 PM at epicenter
Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones
Location 10.838°N, 126.704°E
Depth 34.9 km (21.7 miles)
Region PHILIPPINE ISLANDS REGION
Distances 94 km (58 miles) E of Sulangan, Philippines
106 km (65 miles) ESE of Guiuan, Philippines
161 km (100 miles) ESE of Borongan, Philippines
174 km (108 miles) NE of Surigao, Philippines
Location Uncertainty horizontal +/- 13.3 km (8.3 miles); depth +/- 2.8 km (1.7 miles)
Parameters NST=688, Nph=688, Dmin=435.3 km, Rmss=0.98 sec, Gp= 11°,
M-type=(unknown type), Version=A
Source
Magnitude: USGS NEIC (WDCS-D)
Location: USGS NEIC (WDCS-D)
Event ID usc000cc5m
@Hillrj:
IMHO, the chance is nearly nill. There are MANY instruments scattered all over and they are compared with each other to find depth / distance strength. So any one (or few) being ‘dodgy’ shows up rapidly. The “problem” would have to be in the comparison / software. BUT there are several folks doing their own versions of that, too, so it would rapidly show up as a disconnect between, say, the Berkeley folks and the USGS. As they look at each others stuff fairly often, all sorts of alarms would go off pretty quickly.
Oh, we’re now at 1035 quakes in California ( in the last 2 week interval that show up in the count on the graph) and still rising. Eventually the cluster will stabilize, then the peak of the count will start dropping off the 2 week marker and we’ll drop back. The most reasonable explanation is just that some parts of the State are moving, but in small bits of many many quakes instead of one “big one”; and that’s a good thing. As the scale is a power of 10 thing, you can get a 100 dinky 0.1 kind of quakes pretty easily. Volcanic activity is like that with large quake clusters (of small quakes). So I’m still hoping for a small volcano to sprout in the middle of the Salton Sea ;-)
@P.G.Sharrow:
Darned good summary of the process right now. The two “biggest aw shits” are the one you described, and the section under L.A. proper that last let go in the 1700-1800 range (forgot the exact date, but it is about on the repeat window… and an 8.x class event is a possible).
Yeah, the next month or two ought to be ‘interesting’. I need to find out when lunar perigee happens…
Personally, I’m hoping it is ‘rifting’ activity and we get some ‘toy volcanoes’ on the line from the Salton Sea up to Death Valley / Mono Lake. Like we had 10,000 ish years ago. It would be nice to remind folks that the area does that…
Oh, and the Cascadia is likely to go “soon” in geologic terms.
(I’m glad our section of the San Andreas let go in the Loma Prieta quake. Only the Hayward / Calaveras ‘near’ me has much energy in it, and that’s a ways away and likely to hit Berkeley / Oakland much more than me. I ought to have less ground motion than we had from the Loma Prieta quake. Glad I consulted the USGS soils and faults maps before buying ;-) “This behaviour was by design”…)
@PhilJourdan:
Let us know if the mud volcanoes pick up steam… or a sulphurous smell…
@Pascvaks:
Well, I, too, have noticed the “balance” act. As the Philippines just had a ‘big one’ I’d expect a ‘big one’ on our side of the plate “soon” (which can be months in geologic terms, but I’ve also seen them go in pairs / triads inside hours / days).
Small quakes precede volcanoes. As the magma works its way up through the rocks, stuff gets bent, broken, pushed out of the way. So a ‘quake storm’ is a normal precursor event.
Large subduction zone quakes move plate material down into the melt zone. A few years later after it has melted and the hydrated lighter weight hot magma rises, you get activity in the volcanoes behind the subduction zone (in the melt area). So, for example, we had the 9 in Indonesia so I’d expect more Indonesian volcanoes “soon” and we had that big on off the coast of Japan. Typically Mt. Fuji wakes up after that, so about 4 years to go IMHO.
Similarly the subduction off the coast of N. California gives us Lassen, Shasta, and the Cascade volcanoes. Just with a ‘melt rise’ delay.
@Hugo M:
Good point about central Europe. Folks think of Italy for European volcanoes but forget there have been volcanoes in central Europe. And not all that long ago.
Like this one in the Netherlands: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Quill_%28volcano%29 active just a couple of thousand years ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Volcanoes_of_Europe
@Adolfo:
Frankly, I’d avoid anywhere along the San Andreas, the L.A. basin down to the Salton Sea. With partial exceptions for near me as our little section of fault already let loose (but only a couple of hundred miles of it). Things on both sides are “primed and ready” and in some cases ‘overdue’ and we’ve got a stalled rift down in the Salton / Dead Sea area just waiting to relive old glory…
“Batter up!”?
@E.M. Next Moon Perigee:Ephemeris:
Right Distance From 47°N 7°E:
Ascension Declination (AU) Altitude Azimuth
Sun 11h 49m 56s +1° 5.3′ 1.004 -22.372 118.132 Set
Mercury 12h 19m 43s -1° 9.7′ 1.394 -19.510 110.390 Set
Venus 9h 7m 30s +15° 55.1′ 0.977 -25.827 164.978 Set
Moon 14h 59m 6s -17° 55.9′ 57.0 ER -5.217 69.181 Set
Mars 15h 1m 10s -17° 52.6′ 1.893 -4.846 68.851 Set
Jupiter 4h 59m 39s +21° 53.8′ 4.739 -8.703 -135.836 Set
Saturn 13h 47m 57s -8° 42.2′ 10.612 -10.331 88.278 Set
Uranus 0h 26m 38s +2° 3.7′ 19.073 19.084 -71.627 Up
Neptune 22h 13m 17s -11° 40.8′ 29.090 25.308 -33.335 Up
Pluto 18h 28m 43s -19° 38.8′ 32.121 19.456 25.623 Up
Universal Time: 2012-09-19 19:46:54
As you see the moon will be then at a latitude -17ª 55.9´ South
California now at 1045 so we’ve picked up 10 in very little time… That’s 10 net above whatever rolled off the 2 week window at the other end, so may be more than 10 new if some old ones were rolling off…
I’ve added a capture of the California map (up top 2 down) with 1035 quakes on it (grabbed just before the current run up to 1056!) along with a map of the Salton Sea area showing that 748 of them are in that area alone.
Clearly most of the “action” is on the Salton Sea chunk of the spreading zone / fault system.
Looking at the California map, presently at 1064 quakes and rising fast, one of the “odd things” is the way the quakes are spread out. ‘Normally’ there’s a line on the San Andreas, and some ‘onesy twosy’ quakes scattered around more inland.
Now we’ve got what looks like large stresses active inland. Not only is the whole southern / L.A. Basin down to the Salton Sea full of pock marks (everything south of the transverse fault system) but there are two major northward ranging lines above it. One on the San Andreas and one more inland following the old ‘spreading zone’ line up to Mammoth Mountain / Lakes / Supervolcano, along with significant number of small ones (2+ scale) scattered all over the central valley.
It really does look like the whole thing is just getting slowly squeezed / distorted. Just a very strange state of affairs. May it pass quickly…
@EMSmith; That activity at Brawley, just south of the Salton Sea, may be an intrusion such as created the Marysville Buttes. I wonder about elevation changes in the Brawley area.
Be careful of what you wish. An actual eruption in that that area would wipe out a very large part of the North American winter crop production. pg
@P.G.Sharrow:
I was hoping for a small (i.e. about 100 yards square) eruption a bit further out in the desert. There have been a few of those up toward Death Valley about 9000 years ago. Not a full on rift from the gulf to Palm Desert ;-) Or maybe just a cone that barely breaks the surface in the middle of the Salton Sea…
I know, way to precise a ‘wish’ to have any reasonable probability of happening, but that’s what wishes are for…
Like this one:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pisgah_Crater
So somewhere around the end of the last glacial to perhaps as recent as 2000 years. And just a few km of flow from one cone at a time…
Just a little one…. Pahhleeease!!!!
@EMSmith; How about an eruption north west of Lassen on the Pit River, just below Fall River. It would back up the Pit River to Canby. This is still an active area and it has happened before. That Brawley quake area looks to be an intrusion that will cause uplift but no outburst, Is Brawley a known geothermal area?
Yes it is:
http://www.blm.gov/ca/st/en/prog/energy/geothermal/south_zone.html
Maybe GOD is warming up the bathtub. 8-) pg
Do there live those little fishes that were preferred instead of farmers?
Looks like the count in California has stabilized and started a small drop. Eventually the high formation rate period reaches the end of the 2 week sample period and starts to roll off the count, then it will plunge in count number.
The Salton Sea and Brawley are something near 100 feet below sea level. At various points in geologic history it’s been part of the Gulf of California; and it will be again… but probably not for a very long time. It is a spreading zone, so the (approximately) 9 miles deep accumulated sediments from The Grand Canyon / Colorado river will lower as the trench spreads. We’ve also got sediment trapping behind various dams now, so additions are lower. All this is on geologic time scales, though, so not likely to have visual impact in any one lifetime. But eventually the Gulf of California will extend to north of the Salton Sea. IMHO most likely during the NEXT interglacial melt pulse about 140,000 years from now. THEN the “little fishes” will be enjoying the place…
@P.G. Sharrow:
I’d love to see a little eruption near Lassen / Pit river! I’ve been waiting for it nearly my whole life! Growing up near there with stories of historical vulcanism I always wanted just a little one…
@E.M. sulphurous smells? IS Obama campaigning there? ;)
Magnitude 7.6 – COSTA RICA
2012 September 05 14:42:10 UTC
Earthquake Details
This event has been reviewed by a seismologist.
Magnitude 7.6
Date-Time
Wednesday, September 05, 2012 at 14:42:10 UTC
Wednesday, September 05, 2012 at 08:42:10 AM at epicenter
Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones
Location 10.120°N, 85.347°W
Depth 40.8 km (25.4 miles)
Region COSTA RICA
Distances 10 km (6 miles) NE of Hojancha, Costa Rica
11 km (6 miles) ESE of Nicoya, Costa Rica
30 km (18 miles) ESE of Santa Cruz, Costa Rica
44 km (27 miles) SW of Canas, Costa Rica
Location Uncertainty horizontal +/- 13.6 km (8.5 miles); depth +/- 6.2 km (3.9 miles)
Parameters NST=737, Nph=737, Dmin=135.8 km, Rmss=1.42 sec, Gp= 18°,
M-type=(unknown type), Version=F
Source
Magnitude: USGS NEIC (WDCS-D)
Location: USGS NEIC (WDCS-D)
Event ID usc000cfsd
E.M., the mean epicenter of the numerous quakes at Salton Sea almosts coincides with the location of hitherto four large geothermal plants, which together do provide an electrical power of 600 Megawatts. The generators are driven by steam turbines. A steam-water mixture at 350 bar is produced by four boreholes, each about 1000 meters deep. The flow of thermal energy must be nearly two Gigawatt. I’m currently out of my depth to calculate the mass flow, but I’d guess it could be several metric tons per second. Now I’m curious to know if such a series of quakes happened there before these power stations went online. If so, has the depth or the mean magnitude changed?
@HugoM:
There are sometimes small quakes near geothermal plants, but this is a rather large quake and a heck of a lot of small ones. I think them unrelated.
The place in question is one of the major spreading zones on the planet and only one of a handful on land ( great rift valley of Africa, Iceland…). They are generally highly active places.
When you hear hoofbeats, first think “horse” and only later look for a zebra…
So the history of the seismic activity of that area is “very large”. On the same fault system, just a bit further south and north, there have been (or in Mexico presently are…) active volcanoes. ANYTHING can happen there; from a 7.x+ quake to a large volcano forming.
IMHO, if anything, the geothermal plant may help prevent a new volcanic cone forming… if they make it big enough ;-)
If you look at this graph of peak ground acceleration probable in a 50 year span:
You will notice that the Salton Sea area is a deep rich brown. The highest possible. MAJOR quakes there are a certainty. Which means lots of “moderate” quakes are also a certainty.
There is absolutely nothing at all unusual about a cluster of quakes of this size in that location. The only unusual thing is that we’ve not had more of them, or had a volcano sprout down there, in the last dozen thousand years…
The place sits on top of a 9 mile deep rift, tearing a chunk off of the North American continent. The only reason we don’t have a 9 mile deep valley with a volcanic fountain at the bottom is that the Grand Canyon eroded into the rift and filled it up with wet sediment to 100 feet below sea level. (Yes, it’s 100 feet below sea level. IFF the little mound of dirt deposited by the Colorado River just south of the Salton Sea were breached, we get a 100 foot deep extension of the Gulf of California to the north…)
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/04/01/where-did-the-grand-canyon-go/
That system (all of it) is still active, so we still have spreading of Baja California away from Mexico, and the split of San Diego / L.A. from Arizona / Nevada is ongoing. We’ve put a big dam on the Colorado, so a LOT less sediment is being delivered. Eventually the spreading will now outpace the sediment delivery and the Gulf of California WILL extend north to Palm Springs. Just a matter of time. (but Geologic time, so measured in thousands to millions of years… hope the dam holds ;-)
BTW, there is geologic evidence for periodic flooding via gulf intrusion further north, so this process has happened before. Both the flooding and the larger sediment fill. Rinse and repeat…
So we’re talking about one of the most seismically active places on the planet, with 9 miles of ‘loose fill’ on top of a major spreading / volcanic zone. Somehow I don’t think some water cooling in the top mile is going to make much difference… But if the ‘gap’ between Baja and Mexico widens by, oh, a foot; well, all that fill has to spread out and sink / consolidate to compensate… and having a few dozen miles of fill drop by a few inches, well, ‘things shake’…
Are earthquakes going south?
@Adolfo:
Think longer term time scale. I think they are moving north in the Americas…
A few years back we had a series of 7.x in the Chile / Peru area. Then some more activity near Columbia / Ecuador. now it’s in Central America and with ‘precursor’ activity in California.
IMHO, it’s about 3 years to the Cascadia letting loose; but we also might see a repeat of the Big One in L.A. first. Folks tend to fixate on the San Francisco 1906 quake and forget it was preceded by some major quakes further south.
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/states/california/history.php
IMHO, that’s what comes next to California on the “Great Quake” pattern.
Note that there was activity INLAND too. At Owens Valley, as the spreading zone heads north towards Mammoth Lakes. We also had the Hayward “go” ( it is ‘up next’ in the SF Area as it often lets loose near the time of a San Andreas quake, but a few years displaced one side or the other – since Loma Prieta happened, the highest risk is now in the East Bay).
So in my hypothetical view: First we get the L.A. basin have a ‘repeat’ of the 1857 type of event (dampened a bit up north as the Loma Prieta chunk of the San Andreas is already relieved). Then the Hayward / Calaveras lets loose and the East Bay area of S.F. Bay ‘gets it’. Then the Cascadia ‘lets the big one’ rip…
Historically, the Cascadia has often moved prior to the San Andreas; so it is also possible that we get ‘two ends toward the middle’ with the Cascadia and L.A. going before the Hayward. In reality we could get most any pattern, even Hayward first, then the other two; but my ‘sense of it’ is that this time the activity has been drifting north from South America…
Oh, and the Cascadia has sometimes ( 1700) let loose within a few years of a major destructive quake on the Subduction Zone in Japan… rather like we just had…
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/03/15/1707-hoei-49-days-fuji/
So IMHO it’s “anytime now” for both the Cascadia and the L.A. Basin. (In geologic time that’s measured in ‘a few decades’…)
But keep an eye on the lunar /solar cycle…
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2012/03/31/1866-odd-coincidence/
E.M., you repeatedly assert a 9 miles layer of silt in this area. I’ve certainly understood this argument. However, at a pressure of 350 bar the fast flowing steam/water mix in the boreholes at Salton Sea must be extremely hot, at a depth of only one kilometer. (You would expect a hydrostatic pressure of 100 bar and perhaps 50 degree at this depth. Where does the excess heat come from?) In addition, a large amounts of fast flowing hot water is an excellent solvent. While it is plausible to think that geothermal plants can trade bigger quakes for smaller ones (or may even prevent vulcanos to form), it is still an assumption, which is not necessarily true everywhere. Salton Sea would be a good place to test at least the quake hypothesis.
The excess heat comes from the magma down under the rest of the rocks / sediment. It’s had a few thousand years to heat a few dozen cubic miles of sediments.
Typically there are two wells. One is for injection, the other for extraction, and the fluid can take a very wide path between them. Exposure to LOTS of rocks is the key element.
There isn’t a lot of solubility to quartz and feldspar… though yes, there are some mineralized bits in the water. We’re talking tons of dissolved salts compared to megatons of rocks…
Don’t know how you propose to ‘test’ the hypothesis via the Salton Sea. Total energy we extract is essentially none compared to total input. Total groundwater vastly exceeds the quantity in the injection wells. Etc. etc. Other geothermal places have “done a test” via various downtimes. Only thing noticed was a change in things in the Mag 1 and under class of quakes and highly localized to the specific location. Best estimates is “no real impact”.
http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Volcanoes/California/SaltonButtes/description_salton_buttes.html
So you are concerned about the salts in the water (naturally occurring) while discounting the extant volcanoes, magma intrusions, and 6 cm / year spreading.
I think I’ll go with volcanoes, magma, and a few inches of speading (so all the fill has to sink and spread to accomodate) rather than the salts in the water near the 2 km level.
http://www.institute.redlands.edu/salton/Downloads/Shapefiles/Metadata/ss_geothermalanomaly_metadata.htm
We’re talking “way big” and “way hot” with some of it fairly old, and some fairly new. We’ve got large magma intrusions making mountains of granite and felsic rocks intruded into the sediments, all under a lot of heat and pressure and high salt levels; and having large thermal stresses (both in the heating and the cooling). A magnitude of energy that would run 1/4 of state electricy needs for 30 years (with plenty of heat left at the end and assuming no new magma additions…)
So taking a tiny fraction of that energy out with some water is not going be a very large part in proportion. We’re talking small fractions in any one year.
http://www.energyrefuge.com/archives/salton-sea-geothermal.htm
says:
has a nice picture, but it isn’t clear if this is an injection pump, or the extraction / de-scaling equipment.
The first link also proposes to recover some zink in the process:
Zinc has a specific gravity of about 7, so about 7 tons / cu Metre. I make that about 43,000 m^3 IF it were a solid at depth, but it isn’t; it is already in the brine. That would be a height change of about 43/1000 m or 7/100 or 4.3 cm over a 1 km x 1 km area. But the area is larger than that, and the zinc is in the brine, not being freshly dissolved. All in all, any net deficit in volume is more likely to come from steam loss, IMHO.
Yet the groundwater feed into the deeper levels is unaccounted in this model. We’ve got a whole sea of salt water sitting on a sediment column acting as a fluid injector. Frankly, trying to solve the net mass balance looks mighty hard to me. That water originally got there by processes that continue today…
Is it possible that this particular quake storm was caused by the geothermal wells?
Yes. Just not very likely. There was a massive ramp up all over the State and in areas well away from this particular cluster (though the cluster was a significant part of the counts). We’ve had a couple of 7.x + in the last couple of weeks (3 by my count) globally.
Typically the geothermal quakes are in the 3.5 and under scale.
http://large.stanford.edu/publications/coal/references/harmon/
In the Salton Sea area, the ‘fault’ is 9 miles down and is a spreading zone, not a locked slip / strike fault. There’s a huge mass of mixed loose fill and intruded magma between the extraction and the ‘fault’ location. I’m just not seeing much in the way of mechanism. Especially given that the reservoir rock has not cooled and that the brine is reinjected and there is no record of subsidence (at least not in what I’ve been able to find).
So I simply see no reason to put the geothermal as causal in any bucket other than “plausible but highly unlikely”. For a 3 or smaller, right under the plant, at about the area / depth of extraction? Sure, maybe. For a major quake storm with an over 5.x “launch”? Sounds more like something much more interesting caused by nature to me…
Now if you can find some record that says “They drew out xxxx megatons of brine but only reinjected 80% of that” I could see a mechanism via cavity formation / brittle failure… but that still would also depend on showing no groundwater makeup source AND has the problem that there were no reports of pressure fall off in the extraction wells…. so even that has some hurdle to deal with…
Much shorter form:
I think that 6 cm of spread over 15 km of depth x hundreds of km of length of “spreading” of the zone has more total volume so more total impact / quake causality than 4 cm x 1 km x 1 km of zinc extraction (or even 10 cm x 1 km x 1 km is lots of other stuff is lost too).
Oh, and from that California quake history link:
Long before they had geothermal power plants, two back to back 6.x scale events in the Imperial Valley…
It’s just what happens there.
E.M. – well, the DOE document you linked above showed me for the first time that they indeed reinject the water raised from the production well. The other description I’ve seen made it appear as if these plants were based on a production well only and were thus extracting considerable amounts of hot water from the ground. They still can not reinject all of the raised water, because the their thermal engine actually forms a closed loop and thus needs a condenser or a cool tower. Such devices normally need to evaporate water in order to disperse the residual heat effectively. (The 250 MW is only the net electric power transfered to the public power grid, around 300 MW are used for other purposes). But I’m d’accord that with a almost closed loop there is no big mechanism in sight which could trigger quakes.
Forecasts by the italian physicist Giovanni Imbalzano:
http://users.libero.it/jmbalzan/ssuntale.htm
@E.M.: Here it is your wished volcano:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/09/foul-odor-prevades-southern-california-prompting-911-calls.html
@Adolfo:
Thanks! But it’s not a real volcano yet… just some gas… Still waiting for some glowing red lava ;-) But there is more distributed activity along the various faults that are volcanic zone and not so much along the slip strike faults, so I’m still hopeful ;-)
Central America had a nice string of ‘small ones’ too. “The Energy Aproacheth”…
@Adolfoguirfa – YIKES! Not good at all. Thanks for the link.
There is a study of the Salton Sea Geothermal System, which, among other, did also measure Helium-3 in 2003-2008:
Source: Mazini et al, Fluid origin, gas fluxes and plumbing system in the sediment-hosted Salton Sea Geothermal System (California, USA) ,Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research 205 (2011) 67–83; http://folk.uio.no/hensven/Mazzini_JVGR_11.pdf
Their Figure 4 shows a schematic crossection of the geothermal system at Salton Sea.
Other interesting figures are contained in Hulen et al, 2001 (figure 2 & 8). Figure 8 shows a cross section containing a rhyolite intrusion at approx 2 km depth: http://www.gps.caltech.edu/classes/ge111/Papers/Hulen.pdf
We have now had a moderate quake swarm at Dell Rio, the bookend to the Imperial Valley quakes of last week, on the San Andreas fault as well as to the Japan quake on the trans pacific fault. The New Moon is tonight so the period of greatest strain relief is in the next 48 hours, about late afternoon tomorrow. My WAG is L.A. might get their latte cups rattled or broken. Next time Portland. pg
@P.G. Sharrow:
Interesting links. Yup, volcanic stuff happens under the ‘fill’. And it isn’t “done”, just resting…
There’s been a 4.4 and a 4.0 at about Eureka where the Cascadia splits and goes offshore.
Oh, and look at The Geysers near Clearlake. Having an ongoing swarm of “dinky ones”. Just peppered in a pile of little squares…
My sense of it is that volcanic stuff is kicking up and strike slip stuff is falling off. There was a volcano let loose in Central America too IIRC the nightly news last night…
Hmmm…. and a 4.7 in the middle of the Cascadia spreading zone:
Magnitude 4.7 – OFF THE COAST OF OREGON
Earthquake Details
This event has been reviewed by a seismologist.
Magnitude 4.7
Date-Time
Friday, September 14, 2012 at 20:24:21 UTC
Friday, September 14, 2012 at 11:24:21 AM at epicenter
Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones
Location 44.130°N, 129.040°W
Depth 1 km (~0.6 mile) (poorly constrained)
Region OFF THE COAST OF OREGON
Distances 390 km (242 miles) WNW of Bandon, Oregon
397 km (246 miles) WNW of Coos Bay, Oregon
463 km (287 miles) W of Corvallis, Oregon
463 km (287 miles) W of Dallas, Oregon
Location Uncertainty horizontal +/- 18.8 km (11.7 miles); depth +/- 7.3 km (4.5 miles)
Parameters NST=386, Nph=399, Dmin=403 km, Rmss=1.4 sec, Gp=169°,
M-type=body wave magnitude (Mb), Version=8
Source
Magnitude: USGS NEIC (WDCS-D)
Location: USGS NEIC (WDCS-D)
Event ID usc000cpc1
That Salton lake issue seems the correct answer from wise Gaia to all those CO2 global warmers and their irresponsible blaming to Gaia´s most dear effluvia…
If you see the maps you will notice there is a “zipper” going from the Gulf of California to Juan de Fuca strait in the north.
Thus California will become the New South Vancouver Island!
@Adolfo:
Yes, but it will take a few hundred million years…
There are some local mountains (the Pinnacles National Park being the most spectacular) where one half is “up here” and the other is down nearer to Los Angeles. Eventually (as SF is on the continent side and LA is on the Pacific Plate side) LA becomes adjoined to SF. The Sliver of land that has Santa Cruse on it, ends up off shore somewhere up north…
However…
The Cascadia is a spreading zone off shore and a subduction zone at the edge of land, so there’s a bit of a race condition. The San Andreas delivering more land “up north” and the Cascadia sucking it down to melt and make volcanoes in the Pacific Northwest. So it might end up as a Volcano instead of an off shore island…
I check this link at least once a day, like Drudge, part of my opening ritual –
http://www.iris.edu/seismon/
lately, as I know y’ll have noticed as well, things haven’t been vibrating as much. This prompted me to have a look at quakes in the last 30 days at
http://www.iris.edu/seismon/last30.html
In the FWIW category a little recap of recent >4 quakeology:
18 Sep 1
17 Sep 0
16 Sep 0
15 Sep 1
14 Sep 7
13 Sep 14
12 Sep 18
11 Sep 25
10 Sep 20
9 Sep 22
8 Sep 25
7 Sep 30
6 Sep 19
5 Sep 17
4 Sep 35
3 Sep 25
2 Sep 23
1 Sep 41
31 Aug 39
30 Aug 20
29 Aug 17
28 Aug 21
27 Aug 49
26 Aug 37
25 Aug 18
24 Aug 17
23 Aug 8
22 Aug 10
21 Aug 15
20 Aug 12
Well, OK, just a wiggle. But what’s wiggling?;-)
PS: So far nothing yet today >4. And that’s the way it is, -1600Z, 19 Sep 2012, and you were there. (anyone believe in inter/intra-galactic gravity waves?;-)
@Pascvaks: You should include in your list some “social earthquakes” too, we are in a Solar minimum, and it has been shown that these issues affect also the brains of people:
An important commentary of our friend Michele Casati at NIA:
September 19, 2012 at 13:38 | # 19 Reply | Quote
Simone :
I think Michele Iceland is preparing subsequent alignments are talking about here are two shock significant enough just taken place:
No simone, partly because the specific characteristics of planetary alignments is that of being managers, impulsive and occur in the true sense of the word, such as switches or triggers.
And most importantly of energy releases occur with M> 6, all at once and not on and off the site.
calls Tidal spring Nicola Scafetta.
Do not expect the warning signs.
M7.2 As in Turkey in the past year …
Check the planets and the Moon near the October 23, 2011 …
and find out …. here, I just gave a little “clue” on the subject of the next article.
http://daltonsminima.altervista.org/?page_id=9506#comment-103048
Regarding my last two comments: Forget Them!
PS: Apparently someone at DOJ was watching me as I typed and called IRIS at
http://www.iris.edu/seismon/
and changed the data on the No Quake days and set off a lot of quakes today. I just can’t win! Big Brother got me again! All my work is for nothing, what a waste!
And the link at
http://www.iris.edu/seismon/last30.html
don’t even ever go there, nothing but lies, all lies, sorry folks;-(
Looks like a 6.x at the end of the Aleutians. Both sides of the Cascadia zone have now moved.
No, not a lot. But it’s the one place not participating in the recent large changes of energy distribution.
Magnitude 6.4 – ANDREANOF ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN IS., ALASKA
2012 September 26 23:39:54 UTC
Earthquake Details
This event has been reviewed by a seismologist.
Magnitude 6.4
Date-Time
Wednesday, September 26, 2012 at 23:39:54 UTC
Wednesday, September 26, 2012 at 02:39:54 PM at epicenter
Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones
Location 51.634°N, 178.293°W
Depth 9.9 km (6.2 miles)
Region ANDREANOF ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN IS., ALASKA
Distances 34 km (21 miles) S of Tanaga Volcano, Alaska
1487 km (923 miles) SSE of Anadyr’, Russia
1580 km (981 miles) E of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy, Russia
1597 km (992 miles) E of Yelizovo, Russia
Location Uncertainty horizontal +/- 13.9 km (8.6 miles); depth +/- 2.6 km (1.6 miles)
Parameters NST=833, Nph=853, Dmin=114.7 km, Rmss=1.17 sec, Gp= 22°,
M-type=”moment” magnitude from initial P wave (tsuboi method) (Mi/Mwp), Version=E
Source
Magnitude: USGS NEIC (WDCS-D)
Location: USGS NEIC (WDCS-D)
Event ID usc000cwni
@E.M.: Before the big 9.0 Japan earthquake the OLR increased over the earthquake spot. Now it is happening the same on California:
Anomaly over California:
Magnitude 7.3 – COLOMBIA
2012 September 30 16:31:35 UTC
Earthquake Details
This event has been reviewed by a seismologist.
Magnitude 7.3
Date-Time
Sunday, September 30, 2012 at 16:31:35 UTC
Sunday, September 30, 2012 at 11:31:35 AM at epicenter
Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones
Location 1.972°N, 76.329°W
Depth 162.1 km (100.7 miles)
Region COLOMBIA
Distances 9 km (5 miles) WNW of Isnos, Colombia
33 km (20 miles) WNW of Pitalito, Colombia
61 km (37 miles) SSE of Popayan, Colombia
66 km (41 miles) SW of La Plata, Colombia
Location Uncertainty horizontal +/- 2.9 km (1.8 miles); depth +/- 6.4 km (4.0 miles)
Parameters NST=800, Nph=800, Dmin=388.7 km, Rmss=0.92 sec, Gp= 14°,
M-type=teleseismic moment magnitude (Mw), Version=C
Source
USGS NEIC (WDCS-D)
Event ID us2012gdap
Yes It does appear that the northeast portion of the Pacific ring is getting more active. Looks like our turn in the bucket. pg
@P.G. Sharrow:
Yeah, I’m getting that “Indian underwear” feeling… the activity seems to be ‘creeping up’ from South America, then looking at the California map (now, and back when it surged over 1000 quakes) and it looks like things are piling up here. Can only do that so long…
Then on the other side, we had that batch of large quakes over the last couple of years, moving the energy along toward the Cascadia. So coming from both directions…
FWIW, new quake posting here:
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2012/09/30/quake-colombia-7-3/
with a static capture image of the quake location.
Will it be The Cascadia? The East SF Bay Area Calaveras / Rogers / Hayward ares? The L.A. Basin? Any and all of them are ‘ripe’ and have historical precedent for being ‘ready’. ( Length of time to prior quake, patterns of precursors, etc.)
Any one or two of them could likely be ‘blown off’, but when you have a dozen of them; the odds stack up. Last time I looked, the odds of a Great Quake in California as a whole was approaching certainty inside 30 years. That was about 15 years ago…