Earthquakes
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Pacific Ring of Fire a Volatile Place
The Aleutian island chain, Andes mountains of South America and the Micronesia tropics make up the geographical region known as the “Ring of Fire.” Plates underlying these areas on the Earth are made up of subduction zones. These are zones where oceanic tectonic plate go under a continental plate or another oceanic plate. This results in the increased volcanic and earthquake activity we have seen throughout history in this aptly named “Pacific Ring of Fire”. The Solomon Islands are a part of this geographically volitile place, which saw a magnitude 8 earthquake in its nearby region today, Febuary 6, 2013, and has resulted in a Tsunami warning. Tsunamis are the sometimes seen side effect when earthquakes rattle the…
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Super Earthquakes in History
1. Chile 1960 05 22 9.5 -38.29 -73.05 Kanamori, 1977 2. Prince William Sound, Alaska 1964 03 28 9.2 61.02 -147.65 Kanamori, 1977 3. Off the West Coast of Northern Sumatra 2004 12 26 9.1 3.30 95.78 Park et al., 2005 4. Near the East Coast of Honshu, Japan 2011 03 11 9.0 38.322 142.369 PDE 5. Kamchatka 1952 11 04 9.0 52.76 160.06 Kanamori, 1977 6. Offshore Maule, Chile 2010 02 27 8.8 -35.846 -72.719 PDE 7. Off the Coast of Ecuador 1906 01 31 8.8 1.0 -81.5 Kanamori, 1977 8. Rat Islands, Alaska 1965 02 04 8.7 51.21 178.50 Kanamori, 1977 9. Northern Sumatra, Indonesia 2005 03 28…
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Largest Earthquakes Recorded
Chile, 1960 – Magnitude 9.5 Approximately 1,655 people were killed during the largest earthquake ever recorded. Thousands more were injured, and millions were left homeless. Southern Chile suffered $550 million USD in damage. The quake triggered a tsunami that killed 61 people in Hawaii, 138 in Japan and 32 in the Philippines. The earthquake ruptured where the Nazca Plate dives underneath the South American Plate, on the Peru-Chile Trench. Prince William Sound, Alaska, 1964 – Magnitude 9.2 This great earthquake and ensuing tsunami took 128 lives and caused about $311 million USD in property loss. The earthquake damage was heavy in many towns, including Anchorage, which was about 75 miles…
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Historic Earthquakes in Japan
Developing News: Tokyo, Monday 19:18 (PST, Monday 11:18 – GMT, Monday 10:19) It’s gone from bad to worse for Japan. The official death toll has now reached near 1,700, and there is news of 2,000 more dead bodies being found near the Miyagi Prefecture. The radiation threat is also becoming a scare among the people after the third explosion at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, even though the authorities say that there has been no major radiation leak as of yet. The rescue operations continue, and by now more than 15,000 people have been rescued.
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Earthquakes from Another Time
The 8.9 earthquake that rocked Japan is comparable to the one that shook Japan in 1933 and was the same magnitude that shook Colombia and Equador in 1906. North America borders along the Pacific Rim where plates converge causing the earth to move. On Good Friday March 27, 1964 the largest earthquake struck America at Prince William Sound near Anchorage, Alaska measuring 8.5 on the Richter scale. A survivor of that terrifying experience now lives in Oklahoma City. Some 153 years earlier, the largest inland quake to strike was at New Madrid, Missouri was between December 16, 1811 and April, 1812 that Scientist believe would register at 8.0 had the…