#20804
03/01/2001 3:35 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Earthquake in Seattle suggests a thread.
How about seeing members assemble a basic vocabulary for discussing earthquakes?
For instance: Richter scale. I remember seeing assurance by Richter himself, that his name should not be used as eponym. As a graduate student he had presented the paper for his prof,Beno Gutenberg who was not well enough to do so, and the newspapers improperly attached his name to the work.
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#20805
03/01/2001 4:14 PM
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
I don't know how you folks can stand it, knowing the Big Seism is coming any day now.
(did you feel this one down there in Van Nuys, bill?)
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#20806
03/01/2001 4:24 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156 |
Actually, once I was done wondering how my friends/relative in Vancouver were feeling, the next thing I thought of was Board people. I'm not really sure who's even from Washington state here, but I would like to put out a general wish that anyone near the quake is more or less all right and "unshaken" (ha ha).  Re: vocabulary of earthquakes: How about subduction zone? That's where one plate is pushing its way underneath the other, which is more or less what is happening on the West Coast of North America. Makes those lovely mountains. (For some reason it was mentioned in introductory physical oceanography.) I'm under the impression that the scale currently in use is no longer the Richter scale, but some other scale. Any geologists/geophysicists care to assist?
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#20807
03/01/2001 5:08 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Another dandy word is "solifluction". In many places in San Francisco and elsewhere marshes were filled in but not compacted,and the water table is high enough that earthquake movements turn fill into mud so nearly liquid as to make buildings sink and tilt so badly that they have to be razed.
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#20808
03/01/2001 5:55 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 2,661
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 2,661 |
I believe CapK's office straddles a fault line, I bet he has plenty of cracks up his sleeve  !
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#20809
03/01/2001 5:59 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 771
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 771 |
>I believe CapK's office straddles a fault line, I bet he has plenty of cracks up his sleeve!
Both wise and otherwise...
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#20810
03/01/2001 8:14 PM
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409 |
I just learned today of the Momeny Magnitude Scale http://school.discovery.com/homeworkhelp/worldbook/atozscience/m/367270.htmlI also like the simplicity of the Mercalli scale http://www.abag.ca.gov/bayarea/eqmaps/doc/mmi.html since it measures quakes in terms comprehensible to those of us whose earthquake vocabulary stops at RUN! One of the things I like about the compact, single level house in which I live is that I am never more than half a dozen paces from a doorway, which is I cower away the quakes we have. I have never experienced a 6.8, but the 6.5s I have felt are enough to generate real sympathy for any who experienced yesterday's shake. I hope that any who felt it are OK, and would like to point out the one postive consequence: The world was spared one more Bill Gates shill session.
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#20811
03/01/2001 8:26 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
The world was spared one more Bill Gates shill session.
Bill Gates caused it you know. They ran a tape on NPR yesterevening. The transcript of the relevant portion follows:
Bill Gates: When you plug the camera in you get...
Earthquake: Rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle...
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#20812
03/01/2001 8:42 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
One of the best books I have read in a long time is "Annals of the Former World" by John McPhee. Off and on for twenty years as a vacation from writing novels, he went into the field with a series of geologists, and documents the slow acceptance of plate tectonics. I gave it to my son, so am prevented from yielding to any temptation to quote from it, or pick words to use in this thread. Very, very good reading.
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#20813
03/01/2001 9:09 PM
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
actually, McPhee is one of my favorite non-fiction writers (...can't think of any fiction he's written off the top of my head) -- he has written extensively for the New Yorker and published those articles in collections or stand-alones.
three of my favorites: Coming Into the Country, a great, big book about Alaska; The Control of Nature, diverting the Mississippi; Looking for a Ship, life on board a container ship -- oh, and another: The Ransom of Russian Art, very short and very entertaining. McPhee is really a wonderful writer who takes on a wide variety of topics.
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#20814
03/01/2001 9:15 PM
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400 |
Yes! Mc Phee is one of the reason why i subscribed to The New Yorker. The quality has changed--even i once found a typo/spelling error-- and I am almost always blind to them! But every once in a while they still have a really good piece.
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#20815
03/02/2001 2:48 AM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
Bean, Father Steve lives practically IN Seattle, but he is fine. Our friend Geoff, 100 miles away, felt it. Our other WA friend lives too far away and did not feel it.
From what I've been given to understand, New Zealand is pretty much smallish "islands" of solidity, in between a
network of fault lines. Terror. That's why, though I would love to visit San Francisco, I would not live there--I'm convinced that at least a third of the state of California is going to slide into the ocean, and I don't want to be there when it does! Of course, southwest Kentucky is near enough to the New Madrid (that's MADrid)
fault line that when it goes, we'll be hurtin' for certain.
But it is dead at the moment (Hi, C.K.), and we've only had two feel-able earthquakes in Louisville in my lifetime.
I watched part of the CNN broadcast during the aftermath.
Whoever this lady was, she absolutely deadpanned this line,
while displaying the list of past bad quakes: "This is how things shake out".
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#20816
03/02/2001 4:57 AM
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065 |
Greetings from the other side of the Ring of Fire . (It always sounds as if there should be the odd Valkyrie flying around but if one is I haven't seen her - the Austrian lady at work has short hair which keeps changing colour and no helmet.) We had another big earthquake just off the coast of Sumatra not so long ago. They were expecting a tsunami but it didn't materialise. Earthquakes seem to have a habit of happening at night these days and I sleep right through them. (Put the TV on or start chatting outside my window and I wake up immediately, but an earthquake [shrug]). We've also got two volcanoes that look as if they're about to go off any minute -- Merapi (near Yogyakarta) and Anak Krakatau (better known in English as Krakatoa).
Bingley
Bingley
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#20817
03/02/2001 7:39 AM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 819
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 819 |
Our friend Geoff, 100 miles away, felt it.Gosh, Jackie, I didn't realise that the quake moved us that close to Seattle! Well, anyway, we felt about a 4.5 rolling quake here in Portland. Kinda like going to the county fair, but free of charge. I'm wondiering how many lovers were -er- um, well, occupied as lovers at the moment it hit? I can just hear them saying, "Oh, -----, you made the earth move for me!" And just imagine all the politicians hollering, "It's not my fault!"
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#20818
03/02/2001 3:39 PM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
Sorry, Geoff. I thought it seemed odd, but I took CNN's word for it when they said it was felt 100 miles away in Portland. SHLIU. (Should Have---.) you made the earth move for me--Oh, Geoff- this had me literally kicking my feet from laughing! Oh, you are a hoot and a half!
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#20819
03/02/2001 4:50 PM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289 |
Well, I suppose this is my chance to tell my earthquake story.
When I was in the Army, 1963-65, I was stationed in Verona, Italy. My wife came over (at our expense) and our first son was born there. Due to the Status of Forces Agreement in those days, when because of the prominence of the Italian Communist Party, both the Italians and the Americans wanted to keep the size of U.S. bases to a minimum, we, like many other personnel, did not live in Army housing, but on the local economy. We had a brand new apartment on the first floor front (American 2nd floor), which is the most desirable location, in a new building on the edge of Verona, not far from the 10th century church of San Zeno. Down the street was an Italian armored base (the same caserma where Count Ciano, Mussolini's son-in-law was shot).
You never saw anything of the Italian soldiers in the tank base, as there was a wall and lots of trees around it. The only way you knew it was there was that once every week or so, they would run a couple dozen tanks out, go down the street, around somewhere and return the other way an hour or so later. When they went down the main street (we were on a small street about 50 feet behind it), there was a low roaring sound and the floor would vibrate from the treads rolling over the paving.
One Saturday afternoon, after lunch, I was in the bathroom; on the throne, if you will excuse the mention. I began hearing a low rumbling sound, felt the floor (and throne) vibrating and realized the building was swaying slightly. I called out to my wife, "What are the tanks doing out this time of day?" She replied, "There aren't any tanks -- everything is shaking! It must be an earthquake!" The only thought which went through my head was, when they dig me out of the rubble, there I'll be with my pants down around my ankles!
It only lasted a minute or so and was a very minor affair, but it taught me something about being ready for the end at any time. This is akin to our parents' and grandparents' advice that you should always have clean underwear on, in case you should be in an accident.
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#20820
03/02/2001 4:58 PM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146 |
Call me Martini, I was stirred, not shaken, by the Seattle earthquake. "Ring of Fire" is a journalists' term which the geologists have grabbed with both hands - something has to make plate tectonics sexy. Interestingly, I was taught Wegener's theory of plate tectonics in geography at school as fact, and it was only comparatively recently that I learned that it had not been accepted by everyone at the time. Jackie posited that New Zealand was "islands of solidity". Nope. The fault line runs through the middle of the house. As Musick stated, my office straddles the main fault, the equivalent, and just as active, of the San Andreas fault on the eastern side of the PacRim. My house sits high above and slightly, only slightly, back from the same fault plus an active subsidiary fault. We get at least ten noticeable earthquakes a year. When the "big one" comes, as we are promised, most of Hutt City will disappear below the surface of the ground through liquefaction - alluvial deposits will become as liquid as water, and Hutt City is built on a flood plain. My only consolation is that the vulcanologists and seismologists have recently faithfully promised that when that happens, all of the dormant volcanoes on which Auckland is built will blow their stacks and replace the whole city with a nice, fresh, steaming lava field. 
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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#20821
03/02/2001 4:59 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 771
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 771 |
When I called my mom to make sure everything was OK with her in Edmonds (a northern suburb of Seattle, roughly 65 miles from the epicenter), I gave her the perfect opportunity to respond to my straight line... "So what are you going to have for dinner?" She was supposed to say "Shake & Bake!" 
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#20822
03/02/2001 5:14 PM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439 |
Felt a shake when at Clark Air Base near Mt Pinatubo which -- much later -- erupted and buried the base under ash. BTW the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant on the New Hampshire coast is on a fault line. And yes, they knew it before and during the construction. A concerned citizen's group told the NRC representatives at a public hearing! Can you believe it ??!! On second thought it's only too easy to believe.  wow NRC = a federal agency : Nuclear Regulatory Commission
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#20823
03/02/2001 5:44 PM
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400 |
NRC = a federal agency : Nuclear Regulatory Commission
The same people who approved of NY State's Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant on a small fault line!
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#20824
03/02/2001 5:52 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,773
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,773 |
We've had two noticable quakes in Michigan since 1985. Yeah, Michigan, where they store nuclear and other hazardous waste in the underground salt beds because it's so stable.
The worst damage we sustained was during the second one; it woke up the baby.
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#20825
03/02/2001 7:14 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156 |
[rant] Well, the easy solution to that is stop producing nuclear and hazardous waste! However, people are not at all ready to see the connection between themselves using electricity, or things produced using electricity, and the fact that said electricity has to come from somewhere. And that the products they use are produced by methods which create hazardous waste. And said wastes have to be disposed of somewhere. But everyone says "Nuclear waste? Hazardous waste? Not In My BackYard!", and goes home to put another load of laundry on, fire up the computer, and turn on the A/C. Sick.[/rant]
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