A Rather Shaky Planet

The CentralVaEquakeZone is quiet but much of the rest of the planet is shaking. A 7.6 quake in Costa Rica Wednesday leads the list but every day for a couple of weeks the quake list is long and diverse.  Several different areas of Indonesia (of course), aftershocks, after a big quake, continue in the Philippines, dozens of small shakes offshore of the Virgin Islands and one at 5.4, the Aleutians, California, Turkey, on and on and on. The mid-ocean ridges are even doing lots of shifting about - that seems to ultimately be the driving force so I'm guessing things will not be slowing down anytime soon.
But, then guessing about earthquakes...always a bad idea. They will happen and there is not much we can do about it but hang on (although less fracking seems like a good idea) .  We are hoping our zone is calm for another  hundred years or so.

And, Then, Too Shaky!

No surprise that after a few quiet days the shaky planet would get back to the slipping and sliding. An 8.6 quake and an 8.2 aftershock off northern Sumatra on the 11th (and now dozens of aftershocks)  caused major tsunami concerns around the Indian Ocean. The lateral movement of the strike-slip quake didn't move much water and waves were small. Subduction, one ocean plate being forced beneath another chunk of Earth's outer rocky skin is what causes the big water displacement that makes for killer tsunamis. No subduction this time but seismologist are a little shocked at the strength of this strike-slip quake. The warning system around the Indian Ocean put in place after the 2004 Boxing Day quake/tsunami seemed to get out the word around the basin. Good news for Indian Ocean dwellers.
A 6.5 quake in southwestern Mexico and then 6.2 and 6.9 quakes in the Gulf of California along Mexico's Baja Peninsula (Lower San Andreas fault) continue to keep our neighbors to the south on notice of their location on the shaky Pacific Rim. A 6.2 quake in the Drake Passage between South America and Antarctica is just one more reminder of the trembling nature of our planet.
Only a minor, tiny shake here in central Va. that I've been aware of this past week.
Hang on Earthlings!!!

Not Too Shaky!

The last few days have been fairly quiet on the big shaky planet.  A little action on the mid-Atlantic ridge and some of the other new crust creating, diverging boundaries. But, while the names on the list are familiar, the magnitudes and the numbers of quakes are low.
A tiny rumble here in the CentralVaQuakeZone yesterday morning (that didn't make the list) was just another ever present reminder of our new found shaky home.
Hang on, there is nothing but change coming our way!!!!

On Shakes The Earth!!!

The converging boundaries of the Pacific rim draw closer and closer, shrinking that ocean at speeds hard for us to imagine.  Indonesia, Japan, Alaska, Chile, California, Mexico, Virginia...well, Va. is not on the Ring of Fire but the quakes continue here, too.
The new normal for the earthquake list: Virginia. We are still wrapping our heads around our new, oft shaky world. None of us moved here for the earthquakes.
Hope it is still where you are. But, it's a big wild planet and unlikely to do anything but keep spinning and shaking and changing!!
Hang On!!!

Aftershocks That Won't Go Away

1.8 and 1.6 tremblers early Wednesday probably woke few but kept us on edge here in the CVEqZ. The rest of the shaking world brought few surprises; the Caribbean plate is a little antsy, Vanuatu took a 6.7 hit a couple of days ago but mostly the names on the list are no surprise to those who check out the list on a regular basis. No more, no less, just the plate tectonic-ing planet we call home.
Hang on folks!!! There will be occasional shaking!!!

Aftershocks Still With Us

A 2.7 aftershock woke light (or nervous) sleepers early Sunday morning in central Va. as the year of the quake continues here the Central Va. Quake zone. The rest of the planet shakes on, mostly on the plate boundaries where quakes belong and there have been no quakes in the red zone, 6.0 or better, on the list in several days. The aftershocks continue off Honshu as Japan nears the first anniversary of the devastating quake and ensuing tsunami, an event that has changed quake/tsunami awareness and thinking world wide.
Earth rumbles and shimmies on!!!!
Hang on!!

Plate Boundaries and Central Va.

Plotting quakes for the last two days would easily identify the boundaries that the Earth's lithosphere is broken into and identify places that are regular visitors to the quake list. And, then there's central Virginia; far both in time and space from a plate boundary but shaking again. Three quakes yesterday: two @ 2.5 and one @ 2.0 shake us back to our new reality; we live in an earthquake zone.
The Pacific rim, the mid-ocean ridges shift and shimmy on: Japan, Indonesia, Kamchatka, Philippines, Chile, Central America, the Aleutians, Hispaniola, and the most active of all, the Scotia plate, are all on the list, as usual, but Virginia, to our dismay, is back on the list, as well.
Hang on Earthlings!!!