Nature: 6.5 Magnitude Quake hits the Big Island of Hawaii...

[tucsoncoyote]

Related Articles:
http://www.forbes.com/technology/ebusiness/feeds/ap/2006/10/15/ap3091922.html
http://www.forbes.com/technology/ebusiness/feeds/ap/2006/10/15/ap3091922.html
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/10/15/hawaii.quake/index.html

Here we go again.. About a month or two months ago, we had a strong quake hit the Gulf Coast.

But today we have had a strong 6.5 Magnitude quake hit just off the NW coast of the Big Island of Hawaii.

Now the strong shaker struck just 153 miles from Honolulu and was just 14 miles NNW off the coast of Kaaloo, Hawaii... Luckily there has been no reports of a Tsunami (as the quake was under 7.0), and there have been numerous aftershocks, but luckily there have been no reports of deaths or injuries and that there has been only one report of Structural Damage of a hospital in Kona, Hawaii.

But Let's Talk quakes.. Feel free to ask questions.

Edited Note #1: The quake itself was a 'shallow' quake (14 miles under the ocean floor just off of the big island of Hawaii.
Edited Note #2: Honolulu International Airport is allowing flights into the airport but no flights are leaving..(Most of the Island of Oahu is offline at least 95 % of Oahu is offline.. Also Maui has no Power as well
Edited Note #3: there has been a 5.8 initial Aftershock. Plus a 4.9 and a 4.8 magnitude aftershock afterwards (plus numerous 2.0 to 3.5 quakes.
Edited Note #4: there are also heavy rains occuring currently.
Edited Note #5: Now there are reports of damage to buildings and now we have 2 hospitals that have been damaged.
Edited Note #6: the Magnitude was increased to a 6.6 quake with a 5.8 aftershock with two more quakes (4.9 and 4.8) quickly following in succession and in fact there have a number of quakes afterwords. This quake is in fact just 0.1 difference between this and the 1994 Northridge quake (6.7) so this quake was about 10 times smaller then the Northridge (California) earthquake.

More information on the quakes can be found here (http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsus/Maps/special/Hawaii.php)...
:coyote:

[Dr.Pepper]

I wish that another earthquake would happen around where I live. Not one so big buildings fall down, but one big enough to be felt. I only remember 2 earthquakes, one when I was 5 and another when I was 11. I think it is time for another one.

[tucsoncoyote]

Actually I'm originally from California and I know what Quakes can do.. in fact one of my favorite hobbies is in fact studying (and Discussing) about earthquakes (next to Hurricanes, Earthquakes are perhaps some of the most noteworthy events when it comes to natural disasters.

To Actually feel a quake the minimum size of an earthquake has to be at least 3.0 on the richter scale, though some 'sensitive' folks can start to feel quakes as low as 2.5 on the richter scale.

Also a bit of Note about "the Richter Scale" (Named after Charles Richter who created this seismic scale in the 1900's). The Magnitude of a quake isn't linear in nature, but rather exponential..(which means the increase in energy for Each 1 point of Magnitude isn't 10 times larger.. but rather 32 times larger.. (So for example, a Magnitude of 4.0 is 32 times greater then a Magnitude 3.0 quake.) Also I can give you an idea of how big today's quake was compared to something on the order of a Nuclear test..

Back in the mid 1960's America Tested in the Aleutian Chain of Islands up in the Arctic a 5 megaton Nuclear weapon. This weapon was placed 1 mile underground.. the Seismographs recorded from the explosion, a Magnitude 6.5 quake from the resultant blast..

So let's put this in perspective.. Today's quake (6.6) is just 0.1 points larger then that 5 megaton Nuclear blast.. and Northridge (1994) had a Magnitude of 6.7 (which is 0.1 points smaller)
so imagine a nuclear warhead buried 1 mile underneath the ocean going off, (actually in this case it would be 6.5 Megatons, that's how powerful it would be.. Northridge would be 3.2 times greater then that..

so here's a good representation

6.5-- 5 Megaton Blast 1 mile underground (Alaska mid 1960's)
6.6-- Today's quake in Hawaii. (3.2 times larger then the nuclear blast)
6.7-- Northridge (California), 6.4 times larger then the nuclear blast.)

So in this case the Quake in Hawaii was roughly the amount of about 18 megatons going off 1 mile under the ocean.

(also Imagine the energy released in the 9.1 that they had in 2004 (which generated the Tsunami in the Indian Ocean).. According to experts .. that quake actually caused the earth to actually wobble on it's axis.. and when you talk about that.. you're talking a huge amount of energy..(A 9.1 quake is roughly 1200 times larger then today's quake.. so imagine 1 Gigaton (that's 1 billion tons of High Explosive) going off 1 mile underground.. all in the space of 10 seconds to as long as 5 minutes..

Pretty scary huh?

:coyote:

[Yojimbo]

First off, I made it past Sunday, intact. When the first happened I remember my father running in to get me to wake up and move towards the door and I got up and almost fell off the bed.

Turned out to be a 6.7 followed by a 5.8. We then got about 30 small aftershocks, hardly noticeable. We lost power at around 7:20 am. My home didn't get any back on till 6:20 pm. We lost FM so people mainly relied on AM radio to figure out what happened. Those with propane stoves managed to stay alright. There was one report that one gas station in my area was still open and caused a big traffic snarl. I stayed home all day with my parents and waited it out. To make matters worse we had flash flood warnings from a big storm, as well.

Nobody died, but as mentioned earlier, there was heavy structural damage on our most easterly island, the Big Island. I live on O'ahu which is about central in our island chain. Things are moving back to status quo but obviously the government is looking for FEMA for aid on some fronts.

[tucsoncoyote]

First off, I made it past Sunday, intact. When the first happened I remember my father running in to get me to wake up and move towards the door and I got up and almost fell off the bed.

Turned out to be a 6.7 followed by a 5.8. We then got about 30 small aftershocks, hardly noticeable. We lost power at around 7:20 am. My home didn't get any back on till 6:20 pm. We lost FM so people mainly relied on AM radio to figure out what happened. Those with propane stoves managed to stay alright. There was one report that one gas station in my area was still open and caused a big traffic snarl. I stayed home all day with my parents and waited it out. To make matters worse we had flash flood warnings from a big storm, as well.

Nobody died, but as mentioned earlier, there was heavy structural damage on our most easterly island, the Big Island. I live on O'ahu which is about central in our island chain. Things are moving back to status quo but obviously the government is looking for FEMA for aid on some fronts.

Well I am glad you survived there Yojimbo, but you might be surprised that they revamped the numbers upwards (Like you said that 6.7 was the main shock.. but you then got hit by a 6.0 aftershock.. So in short Hawaii got slammed by two strong quakes.. the first Occurring at 7:07:49 AM in the morning (Local time) and the Second Kick coming in just 7 minutes later at 7:14:12 AM Local...

Now that first quake was within 0.1 to 0.2 points of generating a Tsunami (Lower end limit of Tsunami Generating Quakes is 6.9 on the Richter scale) so had the first quake had been just 6.4 times stronger, you would have been heading for the hills in a hurry.

Of course this pair of quakes I feel is a severe wake up call.. especially to our folks in the Pacific Northwest.

See a quake this close to shore (or near a beach) usually means you would have had very few minutes to make it to higher ground. (where this one was located anyone at the beach would have had maybe anywhere from 1 minute to 4 minutes after the shaking stop .and you can't go anywhere very far in just 4 minutes.. not even if you could run at top speed..

But in The pacific Northwest, there's a Subduction Fault just off the coast of Northern California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia, called the Cascadia Subduction zone.. and this fault zone (Being a subduction Zone) could in theory generate a quake as big as 9.5.

Now if a quake (or pair of quakes would have happened there (and both quakes were over 6.9 on this fault line.. the folks along the coast of that area (about 1.5 million in all) would have just 20 minutes to clear the beach (as the fault zone is just 50 miles off shore..) But what if the quake had been a 9.5? Well still you get 20 minutes after the shaking stops.. but the waves that would be generated would be anywhere from 40 to 90 Feet tall (10-30 meters)...

So just be thankful these two quakes were just "under the limit" else it would have been disaster upon disaster (as the Tsunami would have rolled in minutes later..

:coyote:

[Squall]

First we have earthquakes in Florida, and now Hawaii? What's going on here? Are one of the Earth's continental plates about to break in two or something? :eek:

I hope the damage in Hawaii isn't too bad. Was just the main island of Hawaii effected, or all of them, up through Oahu and even the smaller, rural islands?

[Ykwia]

Seeing as how Lost is filmed there.

All according to plan...

[tucsoncoyote]

First we have earthquakes in Florida, and now Hawaii? What's going on here? Are one of the Earth's continental plates about to break in two or something? :eek:

I hope the damage in Hawaii isn't too bad. Was just the main island of Hawaii effected, or all of them, up through Oahu and even the smaller, rural islands?

Well it affected all the islands Including The Big Island and Oahu (in fact if you look at the seismic maps there were quakes up and down from both of these events.

(the interesting thing about this is that a few of my geologist buddies and me are discussing potential outcomes with this particular event. One event suggests that Mauna Kea (on the Big Island) is potentially Becoming "Active Again" Another theory suggests that perhaps there is a spreading center begining to form over this "Hot Spot" and thus we could see more of a 'rift Zone (Much like East Africa rather then just one hot spot (Potential New Volcanoes/Islands..)

A third Scenario suggest this is just part of Nature and that it was bound to happen..(After all remember where other areas are subducting (Like Japan and others are sliding by each other, (Such as California) there are times when areas (like Hawaii Get Stretched and strained.. eventually an event like this is bound to happen).

Also if this event had generated a Tsunami (Such as like this one on November 29th, 1975, which was a Magnitude 7.2 quake), the resultant times for a Tsunami Arrival would have been as shown below, each concentric Circle representing 1 hour after the event spreading outwards.



:http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/seg/hazard/img/1975_1129.jpg

In short if an Event had occurred at 7:07:49 am and there had been a tsunami Generated, Places Like Los Angeles and San Diego would have had the Wave Arrive roughly around 3:45 pm Local time(PDT) in the afternoon) (5 to 5 and 1/2 hours after the event.) half an hour after that, Places Like Monterey Bay, California, San Francisco and Portland would have felt the wave, and by 4:30 PM (PDT) most of the west coast from Vancouver to San Diego would have felt the wave effects (and you have to remember this, as from 2004), Tsunamis are not just one wave.. but a train or series of waves numbering from 2 to 12 in number .. hundreds of miles apart.. (Each subsequent wave would reach these points some 30 minutes after the previous wave..

so be thankful we didn't get a Tsunami event out of this.

:coyote:

[Mr. Manager]

This is too bad. It was only a year ago I was living there. Fortunately, no one was seriously injured or died.

[Yojimbo]

Naturally it makes sense that by the time the 6.7 reached O'ahu it was a 6.

To answer Squall's question, only the Big Island, the most easterly island in the chain sustained any physical damage. And to SU182, Lost is filmed on O'ahu and I doubt there were doing anything on Sunday so no worries on that front.

I noticed a lot of natural disasters happening pretty close in terms of timing, Hawai'i had the quakes, Houston had the flood, Buffalo had the snow storm, something in China, etc. I hope the religious zealots aren't paying attention, the last thing I need to see is another parade that overstates the need to get out of Iraq.:p I jest, but weird timing.

[tucsoncoyote]

Naturally it makes sense that by the time the 6.7 reached O'ahu it was a 6.

To answer Squall's question, only the Big Island, the most easterly island in the chain sustained any physical damage. And to SU182, Lost is filmed on O'ahu and I doubt there were doing anything on Sunday so no worries on that front.

I noticed a lot of natural disasters happening pretty close in terms of timing, Hawai'i had the quakes, Houston had the flood, Buffalo had the snow storm, something in China, etc. I hope the religious zealots aren't paying attention, the last thing I need to see is another parade that overstates the need to get out of Iraq.:p I jest, but weird timing.

Actually YoJimbo that's a misconception.. the 6.7 that you initially felt was in fact 6.7 Seismic waves do not decrease in magnitude.. only the difference in time between the Primary (P-Wave) and the Secondary (S-Wave..) so all that happens is that in any quake you get first the P-wave to hit then seconds later the S-wave (it depends on Distance.) but the magnitude doesn't decrease.. you got a 6.7 initial shock right off the bat..

Then 7 minutes later there was the "Aftershock" (which I think really was what is Called "A Double Quake" Where the initial shock triggers off a second quake on an adjacent fault). The seismologists who have studied previous quakes suggested that the January 9th , 1857, Ft Tejon Earthquake in Southern California was really one of these type of 'Double quakes', where the initial quake of 7.9 triggered off a second quake on an adjacent thrust fault and the two quakes actually produced a larger quake rated at over 8 on the richter scale. but in reality it was two quakes that joined together harmonically that made it feel like a larger quake.

So in Hawaii's case you had a 6.7 followed 7 minutes later by a 6.0.. after that seismic activity went to near normal for aftershocks.

But a Double quake can happen. And this could have been another one of those "Double quakes"

Edited Note: in Southern California they have also what are called "Trigger" quakes. where one quake triggers off another quake on a different fault zone.. The June 28th, 1992 7.3 magnitude Landers California Earthquake was such an event an 90 minutes later triggered on another fault the 6.5 magnitude Big Bear Lake Earthquake. but both events were related as stress from the Landers event transfered and overstrained the fault that triggered the Big Bear Event. Some of my geologist and Seismologist buddies think this is similar to what happened in Hawaii on sunday.. The 6.7 triggered a second quake on another fault in the same area.



:coyote: