A slight departure from "space" related information in this post.

The U.S. Geological Survey Earthquake Hazards Program continually displays earthquake data for public consumption on their earthquake site:

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/

The map you see with all of those colored squares indicate earthquakes that have occured on the globe within the last hour, day and week. The size of the square indicates the magnitude of the earthquake.

You can drill down on the map to a local geographical view of the earthquake zone. Once you hit the bottom of the drill down you are presented with further tabs that let you view the Details of the earthquake event, a Summary, Maps of the earthquake region with stats and finally Sceintific & Technical data.

I find the most interesting bit of data presented on the Summary to be the depth value. Some of the largest earthquakes in the Pacific rim occur at astonishing depths within the crust.

When I first started visiting this site I was surprised how many earthquakes (although very minor) occur in my region of Ottawa. Just so happens Ottawa sits on ancient fault. When we felt a 3.2 roll through the region last year I immediatly jumped onto the website and was able to view data for the event and to find its epicenter which was located 80km to the South-East towards Montreal.

I am sure our friends out on the West coast would not find this website as interesting as some others might given the frequency of earthquakes you receive over the year. But for those not used to the rumbles under foot it is an interesting resource to play with.


Cheers,

<~ Lives in Monterey, California.

Yeah... its not supprising. We know San Andreas is extremely active. To be honest, I don't remember the last earthquake I "felt", even though we have 3+ magnitudes somewhat regularly. Very interesting web site though.

I took a look at Fiji... they had a magnitude 4 quake just off the big island yesterday. Kind a scary.. I'll be visiting Fiji later this year. Yeah... thats just where I want to be in the event of a Tsunami... on a freaking island = \

I believe in Murphy's law for the "big one":

"In the event of the big one, everything East of the San Andreas fault will plunge into the Atlantic ocean."

:devil

An earthquake on Fiji won't cause a tsunami on Fiji though, if I'm not mistaken. Its the South American or Australian earthquakes that would cause it.

It depends on the epicenter of the earth quake. If the epicenter is off shore by even a few kilometers the potential for Tsunami is there.

If the epicenter of the quake was directly under the landmass of Fuji then you are right Fuji would not be effected by a Tsunami if one was even created in the first place.

Any earthquake that occurs below any of the oceans has the ability to create a Tsunami.

The Indian Ocean earthquake in 2004 occurred just off the west coast of northern Sumatra, Indonesia. We all know the devastating effects of this Tsunami. If the 9.0 earthquake that spawned this terrible Tsunami was epicentered under Indonesia there would have been little chance that a Tsunami would have formed. Although the land mass of Indonesia would have taken the full brunt of the tectonic plate snap resulting in large scale damage.

Any landmass bordering or within the Pacific Rim has a very good chance of getting hit by a Tsunami. Take a look at the USGS map and you will see where all of the earthquakes in the world tend to cluster.


Cheers,

Lokase

Actually the last fairly big earthquake a couple weeks ago in Cali felt like a concussion wave and I used that site and the did you feel it and look at those stats throughout the night, The quake ended up being a 4.2 centered in the Lafayette area and suprisingly none of our equipment tripped offline(In Martinez about 5 mi from the epicenter). If so I would of been posting to get ready for more gas price increases.

Edit: Ohh and feeling a concussion wave in a refinery is not a good thing.