Another quake! http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6355GD20100407?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews&rpc=76
I was thinking this is crazy how many quakes there are but every year we get a lot of big ones. I don't remember hearing about so many quakes in 2009 but apparently there were. http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eqinthenews/2009/ I mean... HOLY SHIT the world is going to end!!!!
It's almost like the world is covered in an interconnecting series of plates that are rubbing against one another...
Are you suggesting these earthquakes are a natural phenomenon and NOT Gods punishment of evil doers? I'm sure you have a reserved seat in HELL!
Mud too: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6352XH20100407?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews&rpc=76 I think I'd prefer getting squished in a quake over getting buried alive in the mud.
1990-1999 Earthquakes: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eqarchives/year/info_1990s.php 2000-2010 Earthquakes: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eqarchives/year/eqstats.php http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eqarchives/year/eqstats.php There appears to be an increase of earthquakes this decade but that could just be because of an improvement in the seismographic equipment being used. Don't get your panties in a bunch.
Siesmology instruments haven't changed that much, mainly in the way they transmit info and network with slight improvements in sensitivity. If anything, less instruments are deployed and fewer geologists due to budget cuts. Nice try though. This isn't about us meeting our doom and the discomfort of wedgies. This is a comentary on the number of deadly quakes and geological related events we're having in the past year. We've already tied half of the quakes USGS notes in their stats and this year is only 1/3 over. Check the deaths stats though. This must be due to it being a slow news year too.
Private industries such as oil/natural gas companies have a great interest invested in seismology. And the improvements made in the field are related to tomography/crust mapping and prediction. Also, things like this: http://www.bssaonline.org/cgi/content/abstract/94/2/678 let us better document earthquakes where the epicenter is located deep under the ocean.
Over the past 5 years there have been some big shifts in the seismic tech we use in oil and gas. We hang strings of "jewelery" in old abandoned wells around a new well to monitor any movements during the drilling and fracture process of the new well. Then we create 4D models of the data and get a real good idea of how our fluids move underground and what the rock characteristics look like. I haven't been in the industry very long and I remember the old seismic tech read outs where you would get a piece of paper with a bunch of squigly lines on it. Now its a virtual google street view down there. I can zoom in and out on different places, rewind, fast forward. Another thing to note about analyzing major tectonic events is that they do not happen uniformly. The earth goes through phases of fast and slow tectonic movement. Usually the fast ones are accompanied by warmer climates and then sudden extinctions. We have evidence of this accuring at 213, 190, 160, 144, 120, 82, 65 (big one, yay large mammals now), 36 million years ago and one 10 thousand years ago. There were probably lots in the Paleozoic and earlier too but its harder to study the old rock. IMO more activity is likely occurring because that is the geological trend right now. But also it sells newspapers and we all know the effect that has.
