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notunek t1_j9mrv6y wrote

It's scary with several large earthquakes worldwide lately. I hope that it isn't because too much pressure is building up and an earthquake in one place increases the pressure in another.

I live in Southern California and we've been expecting the big one for years.

Prayers to all those affected with Syria and Turkey still in a terrible state and now Tajikistan.

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ThePigglyWiggly0 t1_j9mrvc6 wrote

This is what we get for playing the "yo Mama's so fat" game too much when we were kids

Hoping for everyone's safety though

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mburke6 t1_j9mu9oq wrote

It would make sense that they come in clusters though. An earthquake happens when tectonic plates slip past each other. When a plate shifts it could create or release pressure somewhere else on the plate. I think this would be a regional phenomenon, so I doubt it would affect a someplace as far away as California. That doesn't mean that an earthquake won't shake CA to little bits of rubble tomorrow, but I think that quake would be unrelated.

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unpluggedcord t1_j9muq2h wrote

I wouldn’t read to much into it. The quakes are an unpredictable thing and anything happening right now is just recency bias and media.

In San Francisco at the Cal Academy of Sciences(some of the research there is mainly quake related because of the founders), check out the planetarium.

They show a worldview of all quakes in real time and then do some filtering where they show 5+ and 7+ on the day and then do some expanding where it’s on the whole year.

These things happen. All. The. Time. You’re only hearing about the ones near people.

(They also have a fake house built on a shake table that simulates the 1906 and 1989 quakes and it’s insane. They only do 30 seconds of the 1906 one because it’s really terrifying.)

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notunek t1_j9mws5k wrote

That's what I remember from studying them in school. It was some kind of transfer of stress. I should have paid more attention. I don't think it was in only a small area either.

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CervantesX t1_j9myolu wrote

It's not the pressure you would worry about, it's the movement.

Two plates pressing together and going off mostly just affects the area of pressure. The local release is strong but the overall effect is just local.

Two plates slipping, that can be the start of a plate sliding, and that affects every border of it. I think that there are Keystone areas that are the main spots "holding" various plates in place (relatively). One of them letting go can set off a long series of related movement as more spots break from the increased stress.

The worst case would probably be a cataclysmic rising lava prominence getting released between two plates, pushing them apart.

Anyways, hope your emergency kit is stocked. Don't forget to worry about Yellowstone too.

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haloti t1_j9mzl81 wrote

Reading this right after I just watched Knock at the Cabin… Does anyone know where Bautista is right now?

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notunek t1_j9n0hpi wrote

Emergency kit stocked, plus water and food for a month. I can walk to the ocean and dig sandcrabs for bait and catch enough fish to eat. That's if there isn't a Tsunami. I live in a Tsunami zone, too.

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Altruistic_Price7572 t1_j9n0rxw wrote

I think I read on you tube some awful scenario that the entire bloody thing could go from California all the way up to Alaska. Don’t think it can loop down to Japan, but 2020 and it’s not getting more gooder.

That would suck, a lot.

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jeffyoulose t1_j9n25cs wrote

Can't happen in California. California faults are not the subduction kind and can't create earth quakes stronger than 7.5. Plus California has the strongest building codes. Everything is rock solid.

People died in Turkey because of shoddy construction

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Myheelcat t1_j9n7gij wrote

Earth master on YT has a live feed of worldwide earthquake activity. He is excellent on explaining the movements and stresses that move along the fault lines after a earthquake

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UtahCyan t1_j9ncfzi wrote

You can always find an underwriter for just about everything, it's just usually really expensive. My previous house was literally on a fault and the cost was insane.

But even if they can find it, it doesn't mean it will be there when you need it. Massive catastrophic events like that have a way of bankrupting insurance companies. They might be able to reinsure, but for something like this, probably not.

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5spd4wd t1_j9nes73 wrote

Never even heard of Tajikistan. That's a huge quake. The earth is angry.

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NoodlesrTuff1256 t1_j9ni3s3 wrote

Even the 'heartland' of the US is not immune to quakes. Here in St. Louis and also in our neighbor to the south, Memphis, we wonder what will happen if the New Madrid Seismic Zone reawakens and there's a rerun of what happened in the winter of 1811/1812. Not just one but three massive earthquakes shook our then sparsely populated region at the time. One of the quakes was estimated by scientists to have perhaps been as powerful as an '8' with the other two easily equaling the ones that just devastated parts of Turkey and Syria.

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NoodlesrTuff1256 t1_j9nidaf wrote

Wasn't the last really huge one back in like 1700? That's a long time for the pressure to build up. I think that researchers figured out that there had been a monster quake in the Cascadian zone because of old writing from Japan describing a tsunami of mysterious origin. It turned out to have traveled all the way across the Pacific after a quake in the Pacific Northwest region.

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NoodlesrTuff1256 t1_j9nija1 wrote

I've read claims that with the icecaps and glaciers melting away to global warming that with the 'weight' of all that ice removed that large sections of the earth which had been 'pressed down' by it will rebound thus triggering more quakes.

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NoodlesrTuff1256 t1_j9nirbf wrote

Here in St. Louis and other areas along the Mississippi in Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Arkansas and Tennessee, there's the potential threat of the New Madrid fault. It occasionally gives us 'little' 5 point whatever shakers from time to time to remind us.

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littlemegzz t1_j9nj0xl wrote

Curious to know whether more are happening, or more coverage tends to be happening. I can Google, but it only gets so far...

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mburke6 t1_j9njn52 wrote

I've read that about Greenland in particular. The weight of the ice on Greenland pushes it down and raises the north east area of North Easter part of the American continent up. When that ice melts, supposedly Greenland rises and NE America sinks, exacerbating the rise in sea level.

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timpdx t1_j9nkum2 wrote

Just looked it up on the USGS site. In no way is this going to even remotely come close to the Turkey death toll. Firsty, it’s now a 6.8 and it’s in a very remote mountainous area. Nowhere near the pop density of southern Turkey.

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marky30 t1_j9nngpg wrote

Giveaa me an opportunity to look up Tajikistan

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Setamies46 t1_j9nx6f1 wrote

Have these strong quakes got anything to do with this pole shift I have been hearing about recently?

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Aikuma- t1_j9nyslj wrote

Mother Earth seems a bit pissed at the moment.

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fidel1989 t1_j9nzkom wrote

Several large earthquakes lately and it's scary.

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DPPthrowaway1255 t1_j9o10wl wrote

Consider this thought experiment: you have a rope that is attached to a wall. The other end of the rope is wrapped around a spool that rotates slowly, steadily increasing the tension on the rope.

At one point the rope will snap. It is your job to predict that point in time ten seconds in advance, by just using your eyes.

Predicting earthquakes is hard.

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JezebelRaven t1_j9o3whu wrote

Hopefully their buildings are more to code...

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Paranitis t1_j9o6i71 wrote

Why? I live in Sacramento. We used to (historically) get floods that would make the valley into a lake. And every time it rains now people panic that all the levees are going to crumble and we'll all be underwater. Our levee systems themselves are probably going to do a lot to prevent anything like that kind of thing happening. Even IF one breaks here or there.

"The Big One" isn't something to be afraid of. If it happens, it happens, and you can't do anything about it. There's no reason for it to take up space in your head as something serious to worry about. And if it is something you can't get your head away from, then do what you can to move away so that "The Big One" most likely won't affect you.

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xanthraxoid t1_j9o7v4p wrote

Sheesh, I'm genuinely losing track of all these earthquakes! Even skipping the (relatively minor) <7 magnitude ones, it's still a lot. Are we breaking any annual records yet? :-/

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RangerPeterF t1_j9o9q11 wrote

I would guess it's the latter. Once a major event happens, similar events will get more coverage. Just like after covid every newly discovered virus, no matter how unimportant, got blown up to be the next pandemic.

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Mental_Medium3988 t1_j9ocu7b wrote

newer buildings are fine, and the newer the better. plenty of older buildings either cant be or arent retrofitted and those will be the problem. same up here in the pnw. i work in a warehouse and its gonna be fucked in a big one. people will likely die from ammonia exposure alone.

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awry_lynx t1_j9ocxsh wrote

The latter. This one really isn't that big of a deal, it's in a super remote area and quite small. I'm not trying to handwave any loss of life that does happen, but no casualties yet and it seems unlikely - in 2015 a similar earthquake struck around the same spot and final casualties were 2 people (and many homes were destroyed). Still tragic for those affected, of course.

I realize that might sound callous, but it probably wouldn't have received coverage or interest if the ones in Turkey and Syria hadn't just happened.

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jeffyoulose t1_j9oeuyx wrote

True. Pacific north west does have subduction fault. Juan de fuca plate is full of them. So I definitely would worry about the PNW. But it also has less population than California with Seattle and Vancouver being the largest cities that are no where near the size of LA.

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MrYellowFancyPants t1_j9oif3d wrote

If theyre talking about the 2016 one, its alleged that it was from fracking, but scientists also found a previously undiscovered fault line after it happened. IIRC it was also near a known fault line. So while fracking isn't great and can cause earthquakes, the big one in OK may not have been directly caused by it.

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Disquietudette t1_j9orbt9 wrote

thanks for answering! I understand it’s hard but if you absolutely would need to come up with a sort of analogue to explain the causative mechanism of earthquakes to a layman, what sort of things would describe it best? Provided that it still remains a simplified generalization? I’m sorry if i come across as stubbornly persistent but i really don’t have a concise understanding of how to explain this phenomenon to myself or others and you seem like a person who might be able to do that.

edit: why the fuck am i downvoted for asking a question? How fucking stupid are you people? If one can’t ask, one might never learn either and learning is something we seemingly need all the more when people are behaving like you are.

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LazyFurn t1_j9osqch wrote

Definitely more coverage. Look at the train incident in Ohio. Now it feels like a train derails every other day. When this is actually a common occurrence that wasn’t getting front page news before. Every journalist wants to get the most eyes on what’s currently happening so they report on every event in that topic.

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DPPthrowaway1255 t1_j9ouwwo wrote

Maybe imagine rubbing two bricks against each other: they have a rough surface, so at some point the irregularities will interlock and block the movement and you have to increase pressure to get them to slide again. When that happens, the two bricks will move quickly until the next irregularity in the surface gets in the way.

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Myheelcat t1_j9owgi9 wrote

He doesn’t necessarily say where it will happen, I’m not super versed in tectonic activity but from what I have gathered from him is once a big quake happens that energy ripples down the fault in both directions and it has to “realign “ if there’s any stuck parts of the plate as the energy is traveling you get another quake. He truly is fascinating and it is great to watch, but I’m into history, documentaries, how it’s made type stuff…so it’s right on my alley.

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Myheelcat t1_j9owy6y wrote

There has been some activity near mt Rainer the past few days. I try to keep a close eye on that stuff. I’m originally from so cal and have been thru Whittier, northridge, landers quakes. My family is still there so any insight I could give them gives me a little piece of mind. I told my mom to by a prepaid satellite phone just in case something really bad happens

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apexsubthrowaway42 t1_j9p0sje wrote

Please do not fall for "earthquake prediction" quacks. Check out r/Earthquakes if you want real, qualified answers to questions and discussion that isn't based on pseudoscience. Channels like "Earth Master" are charlatans.

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KINK_KING t1_j9p5ags wrote

Looks like insurance companies are excepted from the Bankruptcy Code under 11 U.S.C. § 109(b). I don’t know anything about insurance codes, but state law controls. Probably go into receivership and if liquidated, a fixed payout from the state guaranty association for policy holders (similar to state version of FDIC for banks, depending on state).

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riverrocks452 t1_j9p7n4d wrote

That would be literally unprecedented in what we know of geologic events. It would require a quarter of the circumference of the Pacific plate to rupture all at once, with the rest of the plate behaving nearly completely rigidly: simultaneously weirdly weak at the edge and stupid strong everywhere else. Considering that the plates aren't that different between the edges and centers (including intraplate faults and weak zones), this is profoundly unlikely.

I'm not saying it could never, ever happen- but it's far more likely that a Hollywood movie featuring the above disaster as a plot and a cast of D-list actors will sweep the Oscars. Don't lose sleep over this.

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Nozinger t1_j9pa3cz wrote

Because noone knew of the danger. European settlers arrived in the pacific northwest after the last quake. It has been quiet ever since there was no reason to think there would be any danger.
It took some dead forests, a native american story of disappearing land and tsunami records from japan to realize just how dangerous cascadia really is.

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Nozinger t1_j9pb4oq wrote

And northern japan isn't in a region where earthquakes should surpass a magnitude of 8.5 and yet they famously got hit by a 9.1 in 2011.
The word can't only works until nature shows us that it absolutely can if it comes to the absolute worst case.

But it is true there are probably a lot less deaths in southern california than there are in turkey but it is still going to be a catastrophic event. There will still be thousands of deaths.

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Myheelcat t1_j9pd2kv wrote

I don’t understand how relaying data can be considered pseudoscience? It not like he says, there gonna be a earthquake here. He evaluates data that has been reviewed by usgs. If it is unsubstantiated he notes it has not been reviewed by a seismologist.

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apexsubthrowaway42 t1_j9pe9va wrote

Ah yes, someone who posts 3 videos a day with titles giving "San Andreas fault updates" surely isn't a grifter. He is not qualified in any sense of the word. Every single earthquake charlatan uses sources like the USGS to give them a scrap of credibility.

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Sir_Synn t1_j9pkrtu wrote

Have a brick laying on a countertop with a large rubber band wrapped around in on the side so the brick has full contact on the counter. Pull the rubber band like your trying to move the brick in one direction and measure with a ruler the length the rubber band stretches before the brick moves. You'll find that there is no pattern in your measurements when you do this, and it seems the distance before the brick moves is random. This experiment emulates that elestic nature and friction of plate tectonics rubbing against each other and why we haven't been able to predict exactly when earthquakes happen.

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T_Weezy t1_j9q7j9i wrote

Have there been just a lot of earthquakes in the past couple weeks, or is it that the media is suddenly paying attention to them?

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Wand_Cloak_Stone t1_j9q9q2n wrote

I thought you asked politely and that other people probably had the same or similar questions due to not everyone on Reddit being a seismologist. Sorry you got downvoted for trying to learn. Your edit could have been a bit more graceful, though.

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Projectrage t1_j9qa80z wrote

Cascade subduction will be devastating for any body on the coast…a potential 7 story wave with 40sec notice. Then no way of getting help. PNW needs to invest in helicopters. Past the mountains will be earthquakes. Inland will not be bad, but brick and masonry places will understandably have issues, but the coast will be deadly.

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astinkydude t1_j9qcw9k wrote

I see the East Wind project is coming along nicely

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Disquietudette t1_j9qg7ct wrote

I thought everything i did would be commendable. I try to be what i wish others would also be. I try to learn, i ask clear questions and even try to put the question in a form that would be easy to understand and the one answering would have less trouble in figuring out what i am asking, i thank for every answer and try to reply something worthwhile. I stay humble because i know so little. I ask questions to engage people, strike a conversation and bring forth people wiser and more knowledgeable than myself, try to make the knowledge approachable for myself and others. I try to take account the appearance of my questions: i know my questions might be felt as stubborn and the knowledge might be hard to be distilled in a form accessible to ignorant people like myself. So everything i did i felt was what should be done and still i was downvoted. So because of this i feel people who are downvoting are acting contrary to reason and good manners and people who are acting like that are.. stupid? And stupidity.. should be called out? I think it serves the stupid people best if someone calls out their behavior as it lets them know of their shortcomings. I know i didn’t do it gracefully but in a stupid manner. All downvoters: i wish you well. Please act in a way you wish others would act towards you.

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Wand_Cloak_Stone t1_j9qgq8g wrote

Reddit is just fickle. I’ve made the same comment two different times before, in the same sub but in different threads/on different days, and had one get downvoted to hell and the other with 1000 upvotes. Don’t let it bother you, a lot of people on this site are very young and need to develop a bit of maturity.

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BasenjiBob t1_j9qh5rj wrote

My mom was pregnant with me during Loma Prieta. (My dad was actually at the World Series game that day.) Cell phones weren't a thing and they weren't able to get in touch with each other for nearly 12 hours after quake. They were both sure the other one was dead. (My mom drove on the highway that collapsed every day to commute. Luckily she stayed late at work that day since my dad was at the game with his brother.)

When they did finally both get home, my mom's first words were "I'm ok, but I'm afraid that the baby might be scrambled eggs."

I was born 5 months later and to this day my dad still sometimes calls me "scrambled eggs."

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Aldervale t1_j9qvutp wrote

Oh ya 100%. I didn't mean to imply that there was anything corrupt or malicious about the fact we didn't consider it until a couple of decades ago. Just that a lot of buildings in the PNW are not ready for an 8+ magnitude earthquake.

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notasrelevant t1_j9r6qx0 wrote

An average of 15 earthquakes over 7 magnitude happen each year, so a little more than once a month. So nothing too out of the ordinary is happening, just the unfortunate location and conditions of the Turkey earthquake making more news.

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jeffyoulose t1_j9rypge wrote

If the turkey quake happened in LA. The death toll would be in the hundreds and not 10s of thousands due to all those building collapses.

Just think of Loma prieta quake and the north ridge quake. Nothing in terms of mass deaths.

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Kale t1_j9t3mso wrote

The Japanese were aware of the link between earthquakes and tsunamis when the last Cascadia event occurred. There are records of a tsunami in Japan without a recorded quake. It's believed this may have been Cascadia (early 1700's I think?). Indigenous people told the first European explorers about quakes, which probably had occurred not long before the explorers reached the PNW coast.

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Kale t1_j9t3rkj wrote

There's also ozone generators for purifying water, but ozone gas is poisonous and doesn't stay in water like chlorine does. Ozone generators are pretty cheap and simple.

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Kale t1_j9t445a wrote

It was kind of expected, but the Webb telescope has already found galaxies that should be too massive/dense to exist. It's likely that our current models need some tweaking.

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Kale t1_j9t53nd wrote

Magnetic pole drift has been observed for a while. The statistics are very broad, but it's not outside the realm of possibility that the N and S magnetic poles swap soon. It's also possible it's thousands of years away, still. It's still unknown if the flips occur really quickly and stabilize, or if it's an extended process with a few years of an unstable field, with many "poles" spread out and constantly moving while it's transitioning.

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