The Earth Moved
The tragic 8.9 magnitude earthquake and resulting tsunami in Japan have done some horrible damage. Part of the effect of it, amazingly, is that the Earth was shifted on its axis by 4 inches. The huge waves of the tsunami also shaved 8 feet off of the Japanese coast. A truly devastating display of the power of nature.
Comments
js wolf if you can, let us know you are okay. lets all send our thoughts and or prayers to our fellow wuvian js wolf and to all the japanese people at this difficult time.
Posted by Patty in Ohio, USA on 03/12/11 at 07:55 PM
Wasn't exactly that the tsunami shaved the shore, although it certainly changed many shorelines significantly. The island itself was actually moved from 8 to 13 feet. This, and the alteration of the axis, is just normal-- as normal as 9-point quakes, anyway. The Boxing Day quake a couple years back, same effects. Christchurch NZ quake moved it a little. What I'm waiting for is for one of these island nations to have a big chunk shear off like a calving iceberg and fall into one of those deep trenches. That'll make some waves!
http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/12/japan.earthquake.tsunami.earth/index.html?hpt=T1
http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/12/japan.earthquake.tsunami.earth/index.html?hpt=T1
Posted by Nat Strainer on 03/13/11 at 12:56 AM
Patty, thanks for your concern. I'm doing fine; I live about as far inland as you can in Japan, and I didn't even feel the big one, though another person in the room with me at the time did.
The aftershocks are still continuing, and they said on TV that there's about a 70% chance of a >=7 one for the next 3 days. I don't remember if it's the Japanese scale or magnitude, but the big one rated a 7 on the Japnanese scale, which measures the amount of shaking and is, according to the all-knowing wikipedia an intensity scale which depends on a lot of factors that the magnitude is independent of including the depth of the quake. There've been a couple of aftershocks on other faults as well, including some big ones on the same fault where the last big quake was in Niigata about 4 years ago.
The GPS in my car is also having even more difficulty than usual figuring out what road I'm on at times, so Nat's link probably explains that...
The aftershocks are still continuing, and they said on TV that there's about a 70% chance of a >=7 one for the next 3 days. I don't remember if it's the Japanese scale or magnitude, but the big one rated a 7 on the Japnanese scale, which measures the amount of shaking and is, according to the all-knowing wikipedia an intensity scale which depends on a lot of factors that the magnitude is independent of including the depth of the quake. There've been a couple of aftershocks on other faults as well, including some big ones on the same fault where the last big quake was in Niigata about 4 years ago.
The GPS in my car is also having even more difficulty than usual figuring out what road I'm on at times, so Nat's link probably explains that...
Posted by jswolf19 in Japan on 03/13/11 at 10:16 AM
thank you for letting us know you are ok and what you have experienced as well js. i am so glad you are safe sweetie. I hope things get better over there.
Posted by Patty in Ohio, USA on 03/13/11 at 06:45 PM
Good to hear from you JS. Glad all is well with you.
Posted by Expat47 in Athens, Greece on 03/14/11 at 01:08 AM
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