Montana and The Philippines - Shaking!!

A 5.8 quake rocked the mountains of the state named for mountains, Montana, about 12:30 local time today. A slow build up for the 30 second quake apparently limited damage and no injuries have been reported.  That was not the case in the Philippines where at least one death resulted from the 6.5 quake in the central part of the archipelago.  No tsunami warning remains from that quake.
Both north and south of that quake along the Ring of Fire several quakes in the upper 4 and 5 range have shaken things up today - but live on a subduction zone and you will have quakes.  Across the Pacific in Guatemala, a 5.1 quake shook up the eastern side of the plate.
And, of course, the human caused quakes in Oklahoma continue; but, hey, gas is under $2.00 so who cares! Likely only the folks in central OK. And, their voice is not being heard.
Don't worry, when your quake happens you'll be the first to know, today on Earth.

Ring O Fire Quakes

Ring O Fire Earthquakes

Volcanoes are not the only frequent natural disaster in the Ring Of Fire, Earthquakes are also common in the Ring of Fire. Out of today’s earthquakes (3/27/17), all most all of them have been on the Ring O Fire, and all of them are around Asia, North and South America. Most of Earth's quakes are here do to the movement of the tectonic plates. These quakes are also a result of the frequent volcanic explosions in the area. Out of all of the volcanoes on Earth, the ones around the Ring O Fire are undoubtedly the most powerful on the planet.

Shimen, China

    The earthquake in Shimen, China had a magnitude of 5.0. The location of the earthquake is 25.901°N 99.710°E. This earthquake had a depth of 28.79 km. It happened on 2017-03-26 at 23:55:06.860 UTC. This earthquake caused serious damage to over 500 houses. Thankfully, only one person was injured by falling tiles.

Earthquakes Today

There has been a total of 90 earthquakes in the past 24 hours (as of 3/28/12 @11:09 am) according to http://earthquaketrack.com/recent. The latest earthquakes happened around 4 hours ago in Northern Peru.  It had a magnitude of 4.7 and a depth of 129 km. The biggest earthquake this year was in Panguna, Bougainville, Papua Guinea and it had a magnitude of 7.9. As of yesterday, there has been a cluster of earthquake activities in Puerto Rico near the Puerto Rico Trench. Out of the 11 earthquakes that have recently shook up the area, the biggest quake was in Road Town, British Virgin Islands with a magnitude of 3.5 and depth of 93.0 km.  

History of Earthquakes

    For as long as the Earth has been in existence, there has always been earthquakes. Earthquakes are caused by the movement of tectonic plates, and the earth’s plates have always been in motion. Most of today's quakes are located in the Ring O Fire, the line around the Pacific Ocean going through Asia, North and South America. Others also occur outside of the ring, like the one in Louisa, Virginia in 2011, when a magnitude 5.8 earthquake shook the entire state and could be felt over 500km away from the epicenter in Mineral, Virginia. Over ⅓ of the US population at the time felt the quake, so it was the biggest quake in that respect in US history. In the past, Earthquakes in Japan have been devastating, killing thousands and producing volatile tsunamis, causing even more damage. Due to Fracking in Oklahoma, seawater that has been released has caused daily quakes, which will continue until fracking ends there. In human history, there has always been powerful earthquakes, and there always will be as long as the Earth is in existence.

Philippine Quake

On October 12 , 2016 in the Philippines, they experienced a medium magnitude earthquake. The earthquake was in an area most commonly referred to as Tingloy. This earthquake had a 5.2 magnitude. The town of Tingloy  experienced no major damage , but the definitely felt the shake. Tingloy is a town in Batangas, Philippines that consist of 17,919 people.  Tingloy off the southwest coast of Batangas mainland. This town has a land area of 14 miles and has rugged hills and some sloping mountains.

The Earthquake in the Philippines that happened recently was a 5.2 quake at 13N and 121E. This quake is centered in Batangas, near Tingloy, and it happened on October 12, 2016. The earthquake occurred at a depth 137km.  There have been no major injuries or damage from this earthquake currently. For the area, this earthquake is considered to be light or moderate.

This earthquake happened along the Philippine Sea Plate, an active plate made up of convergent boundaries. A plate being converging on various sides is unusual, but not impossible. This plate has the Pacific plate subducting under it, and it is subducting beneath the Eurasian plate. This results in quite a bit of earthquake activity, and sometimes can cause things like tsunamis.

Today on earth, we will be looking at a recent earthquake from around the world.  The Philippines were rocked with a nice sized 5.2 earthquake, which compares to our earthquake that hit a little too close to home around five years ago. Our 5.8 quake was 5 times bigger and 8 times stronger than the 5.2 quake that happened today, as reported by the USGS (US geologic survey), however theirs was still a mediocre shake. The town of Tingloy was hit the hardest, and the earthquake hit a little off the coast, which makes sense considering the Philippines are on an convergent ocean boundary.

Kami.com reported that other than the mild thunderstorms they have been getting lately, a quake here was not uncommon, however the epicenter was 7km off of the coast and very close to an iconic tourist and vacation destination, Puerto Galera, which could make some peoples vacation a little different, definitely something they won’t soon forget.

The damage sustained by the quake registered as a VI-VII. A VI quake on the Mercalli scale means that it was felt by all, and frightened many, some heavy furniture was moved, slight damage. A VII on the Mercalli scale means that there was some visible damage in poorly built structures, slight damage in the average house, and some chimneys fell. PHIVOLCS, which is the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology pinpointed the exact epicenter, which was closest to Mindoro in Abra de long, a 2nd class town with a population of roughly 30,000 people.

On August 8, 1976 an 8.0 magnitude earthquakes hit the philippines a little past midnight. (The highest magnitude earthquake ever recorded in the philippines.) The epicenter was in the Moro Gulf. The earthquake produce a tsunami 4 to 5 meters high. The tsunami covered about 700 km of coastline. It wasn’t the earthquake that killed most people. It was the tsunami no one saw because it was dark. The earthquake and tsunami killed 8,000 people and injured 10,000 people. It all left over 90,000 people homeless.

Ring of Quakes

Long time, no blog!! A quick quake update: no real shockers, if fact today is a little strange on the quake map for the world, almost every quake is on the ring of fire. All around the Pacific and that's pretty much it. Nothing approaching magnitude 6 so nothing newsworthy (unless you are at an epicenter) either.
Off the ring of shakes, the central mid-Atlantic ridge shifted today, Puerto Rico shimmied a little, a little shake happened west of Yellowstone and, of course, Oklahoma, land of freakin' fracking, has already put 2 quakes on the map. ("Not our fault, can't prove it, how 'bout those gas prices", said an exxonBPchevron spoke person.)
Central Va. zone has been very quiet of late, let's hope that continues (but, there's no fracking here…).

5.8 Quake Off Oregon

It appears that while California, and lately Oklahoma, gets the earthquake attention up the coast there's slipping and sliding, too. A 5.8 quake off the Oregon coast in unlikely to have stirred the seafloor enough to cause tsunami concerns but it is a reminder that the San Andreas is not the only action on the west coast. The tiny Juan de Fuca plate is getting squished by both the Pacific and North American plates and pressures will be relieved. Today was a reminder. A 5.5 aftershock continued the adjustment.
The other quakes on today's list are on the boundaries, where earthquakes belong.

Ring of Quakes and Oklahoma

I know, it's the Ring of Fire and while that is appropriate today, also, today's quakes circle the Pacific nicely...and then there's Oklahoma. The big action is at the junction of the Australian plate and the Pacific plate in the vicinity of Fiji and the Solomon Isles. Some pre-quakes set the stage for the biggest quake at 6.4. Aftershocks will likely be the order of the day in that collision/subduction zone. How long before all that slippin' and slidin' of rock will lead to the melting and spewing of liquid rock that brought  those islands to life; nothing on the volcano list today. It will likely be soon... but only in Earth time, and that and human time are far from synched.
Where human and Earth time are more closely synched: Oklahoma (and now Kansas). Still more measured quakes in Oklahoma than California on a daily basis but the oil industry doesn't mention the quakes in their commercial singing the praises of fracking. No water pollution, lots of jobs, cheap gas; you'd think that fracking was a wonderful thing and that blowing up the earth to free the hydrocarbons trapped in shale formations was the best thing ever. Back to Earth time and not quarterly, corporate time there is likely another outcome: water pollution is an issues in many (most?) fracking regions, the fire still burning Backen shale oil in WVa, pipeline leaks (of course, they leak, just not news worthy), truck crashes and fires (local news...unless it hits a bus) and earthquakes, hundreds of quakes.
Sitting somewhere that's not shaking daily, quakes in the 2 and 3 and 4 magnitude range seem cute and harmless. Take it from a resident on the recently very shaky Central Va. Quake zone, they are neither cute nor harmless; they take a psychological toll and EVERY earthquake is the earth readjusting itself and means change. Tiny changes that over time stirs volcanoes and moves continents, builds mountains, unleashes tsunamis and results in the planet we see today, but, only today. Earth time can be very slow, but abrupt changes to the system (the Earth cares not about cause) can make those changes speed up to a time very noticeable by humans.
Will fracking in Oklahoma trigger the New Madrid quake zone along the Mississippi to fire back up? If St. Louis shifts half a mile toward (or away from) Memphis will the oil companies be there to help? No one driving a Hummer in the US takes any blame for the giant typhoons that hammered the Philippines the last two years.  How has coal burning in the world to produce the electricity we "need" changed jet stream patterns that has Boston buried in deep snow and below zero temps headed for the south tonight, here deep into February. We don't know, but while knowledge is difficult to obtain, denial is easy, ask any lawyer or oil company executive: you can't prove it was me!!
7+ billion humans and we all want it all. We'll see how that works out long (and short) term here on the shaky planet, shifting on today and everyday: Earth.

Indo-Australian Plate Action

The mid-ocean ridges of the Indian ocean continue to drive the Indian and Australian plates north and north east and that continues to cause issues - aka: earthquakes - all along the convergent boundaries those plates "share" with the Asian and Pacific plates.  A 6.1 quake yesterday at the northeast corner of the Indian plate in southern China caused well over 100 deaths, thousands of injuries and destroyed tens of thousands of buildings.  Over the last week, quakes of magnitudes just below that follow all along that Indo-Asian boundary and the shaking continued with lots of 4 and 5 magnitude quakes following the island arcs created by the subduction of the northern edge of the Aussie plate with the basalt of the Pacific sea floor.  Just a guess...but that is likely to continue...for the next 10 to 50 or 100 million years.
Across the Pacific, central and northern South America were shifting and shaking pretty good over the last 7 days.  A 6.3 quake in southern Mexico in late August leads the list but the quakes continued down the isthmus that is central America and all the way down to Peru along the western edge of South America.
The US was mostly quiet this week; small quakes in California, Alaska and fracking quakes in Oklahoma were about it.  Central Va. has been still since the 2.1 shake the last Friday in August and as we approach the 3rd anniversary of the quake that changed thinking along the east coast those of us in the shaky zone would like to see it stay that way.  If wishes were horses...  We know that quiet is not something the earth is likely to be, for at least another billion years or so, get out and enjoy what ever the planet throws your way, today on Earth.