7.1-magnitude earthquake has struck off the Solomon Islands; no tsun

[MNeagle]

US monitor: 7.1-magnitude earthquake has struck off the Solomon Islands; no tsunami expected


ADELAIDE, Australia - A powerful earthquake struck off the Solomon Islands on Sunday, but a monitoring agency said a tsunami was not expected.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the 7.1-magnitude quake hit southwest of the island chain's Kira Kira island in the South Pacific. The temblor's epicenter was about 130 miles (210 kilometers) southeast of the capital, Honiara.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center says a destructive wave is not expected. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

The Solomon Islands is a country of nearly 1,000 islands that lie on the "Ring of Fire" — an arc of earthquake and volcanic zones that stretches around the Pacific Rim and where about 90 percent of the world's quakes occur.

http://www.startribune.com/world/90561769.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD 3aPc:_Yyc:aUUZ

[uranian]

good info here on why all the quakes are happening (ignore the last 90 seconds):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdCdll2GGVc

what is causing all the goings on with the magnetosphere is another thing; 2 reasonable theories seem to be that the solar system is moving through a highly-charged plasma cloud (note that the magnetosphere has been acting up when the sun has been quiet, so it's not the sun doing this, though the sun appears to be affected by the same forces), or a brown dwarf incoming to the solar system. i'll dig out links if anyone is interested.

[Horn]

i'll dig out links if anyone is interested.

Go ahead, maybe make a new thread concerning it, I have some links to add to that as well.

[MNeagle]

Magnitude 4.4 earthquake part of swarm of seismic activity shaking California-Mexico border


SAN DIEGO - A cluster of moderate earthquakes near the U.S.-Mexico border is continuing to rattle southern California one week after a magnitude 7.2 quake slammed the area.

The U.S. Geological Survey says a magnitude 4.4 earthquake struck at 9:42 a.m. Sunday, about 11 miles west of downtown Calexico.

At least 17 other quakes in the magnitude 3 range were also reported in the same area Sunday.

No damage or injuries have been reported.

Scientists say the increased seismic activity is normal following the magnitude 7.2 earthquake last Sunday. Officials say the Easter quake killed two people and caused an estimated $100 million in damage to California alone.

http://www.startribune.com/nation/90571959.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD 3aPc:_Yyc:aUUZ

[MNeagle]

Earthquake hits southern Spain; damage said unlikely

(CNN) -- A strong earthquake struck near the Spanish city of Granada early Monday, but at a depth that made damage to the medieval Moorish capital unlikely, the U.S. Geological Survey reported.

The magnitude 6.2 earthquake struck at 12:08 a.m. local time Monday (6:08 p.m. Sunday ET), the USGS reported.

It was centered about 24 kilometers (15 miles) southeast of Granada and about 370 kilometers (230 miles) south of Madrid, Spain's capital.

There was no immediate report of damage or injuries from the temblor. The quake's recorded depth of 616 kilometers -- nearly 400 miles -- means little damage is likely, geophysicist Susan Potter told CNN.

"When an earthquake is deeper, the seismic energy is absorbed by the Earth," Potter said. "So there will be less damage expected in the epicenter area."

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/04/11/spain.earthquake/index.html?hpt=T2

[uranian]

there were 4000 earthquakes on the USGS map over the course of a week a few days back. unprecedented stuff. i think it's related to this:

Voyager Makes an Interstellar Discovery (http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2009/23dec_voyager/)


December 23, 2009: The solar system is passing through an interstellar cloud that physics says should not exist.

Using data from Voyager, we have discovered a strong magnetic field just outside the solar system," explains lead author Merav Opher, a NASA Heliophysics Guest Investigator from George Mason University. "This magnetic field holds the interstellar cloud together and solves the long-standing puzzle of how it can exist at all."

The discovery has implications for the future when the solar system will eventually bump into other, similar clouds in our arm of the Milky Way galaxy.

Astronomers call the cloud we're running into now the Local Interstellar Cloud or "Local Fluff" for short. It's about 30 light years wide and contains a wispy mixture of hydrogen and helium atoms at a temperature of 6000 C. The existential mystery of the Fluff has to do with its surroundings. About 10 million years ago, a cluster of supernovas exploded nearby, creating a giant bubble of million-degree gas. The Fluff is completely surrounded by this high-pressure supernova exhaust and should be crushed or dispersed by it.

"The observed temperature and density of the local cloud do not provide enough pressure to resist the 'crushing action' of the hot gas around it," says Opher.

So how does the Fluff survive? The Voyagers have found an answer.

"Voyager data show that the Fluff is much more strongly magnetized than anyone had previously suspected—between 4 and 5 microgauss*," says Opher. "This magnetic field can provide the extra pressure required to resist destruction."

NASA's two Voyager probes have been racing out of the solar system for more than 30 years. They are now beyond the orbit of Pluto and on the verge of entering interstellar space—but they are not there yet.

"The Voyagers are not actually inside the Local Fluff," says Opher. "But they are getting close and can sense what the cloud is like as they approach it."

The Fluff is held at bay just beyond the edge of the solar system by the sun's magnetic field, which is inflated by solar wind into a magnetic bubble more than 10 billion km wide. Called the "heliosphere," this bubble acts as a shield that helps protect the inner solar system from galactic cosmic rays and interstellar clouds. The two Voyagers are located in the outermost layer of the heliosphere, or "heliosheath," where the solar wind is slowed by the pressure of interstellar gas.

The size of the heliosphere is determined by a balance of forces: Solar wind inflates the bubble from the inside while the Local Fluff compresses it from the outside. Voyager's crossings into the heliosheath revealed the approximate size of the heliosphere and, thus, how much pressure the Local Fluff exerts. A portion of that pressure is magnetic and corresponds to the ~5 microgauss Opher's team has reported in Nature.

The fact that the Fluff is strongly magnetized means that other clouds in the galactic neighborhood could be, too. Eventually, the solar system will run into some of them, and their strong magnetic fields could compress the heliosphere even more than it is compressed now. Additional compression could allow more cosmic rays to reach the inner solar system, possibly affecting terrestrial climate and the ability of astronauts to travel safely through space. On the other hand, astronauts wouldn't have to travel so far because interstellar space would be closer than ever. These events would play out on time scales of tens to hundreds of thousands of years, which is how long it takes for the solar system to move from one cloud to the next.

"There could be interesting times ahead!" says Opher.

there is some evidence that the "local fluff" has actually entered the heliosphere, and is what is affecting everything within it, i.e. many planets acting up (pluto has started to change colour lately, for example), the sun, climate change, the magnetosphere taking a battering even when the sun is quiet. will post when it's not 2am local time :)

[Kali]

A 6.3 hit Spain a couple hours ago...

[steveoc]

If anyone is in the mood - this guy here :

http://www.youtube.com/user/astrotometry

Has been accurately predicting earthquakes for a while now with some success. All well and good, until you try and wrap your head around his reasoning. I cant quite follow it yet myself ... and Im OK on quantum mechanics up to a point.

His published earthquake warnings are based on an analysis of activity on the sun, and overlaying sun spots and CME's to coordinates on the earth ahead of time.

Its hard to go through the video presentations, which are put forward as a rigorous scientific study of the nature of space and time ... I just wish he would present some meat - I would like to see the maths behind it. There are several primer videos on his site where he details the models he is using to represent the nature of the solar system and time on a whiteboard.

I am not sure if they guy is completely nuts, or actually on to something with this stuff. Bottom line though is a history of dead accurate earthquake predictions using his 'analysis'.

Talks specifically about earthquake prediction here, with some high level reasoning :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UT029uitG8

Interesting viewing, not for the faint hearted - best viewed with a glass of good wine and an open mind.

[Twisted Titan]

If nothing else it serves as a constant reminder

No matter how good we prep

WE ARE ALL ON BORROWED TIME


T