Earthquake off Northern California

merger writes "A 7.0 earthquake (7.4 according to NOAA) occured off of the northern California coast occured at 7:50 p.m. PST triggering a tsunami warning (which was then downgraded to a tsunami bulletin). While searching Google News for information I learned about an earthquake preparedness study for the area which was just published today."

Re:Undersea Cables?

[Infinityis]

Am I the only one who finds it amusing that an EARTHQUAKE occured, human lives are put in danger, and one of the first questions posted asks about if the internet connection survived?

The Matrix has you, parent poster.

Re:Undersea Cables?

[Forbman]

No, the amusement is in realizing that if the earthquake caused a break underwater, that it's not going to be fixed in ~2 hrs, thus indicating the cluelessness of the question pondered.

Re:Shrug,

[Mahou]

that's what tornados are for

Re:Earthquake? Bah....

[WIAKywbfatw]

Yeah, it always good to joke about events that can and do kill hundreds of thousands. It's even better if you can do it as soon as the story is published because some kindred spirit with mod points might even spend one on your comment, thereby giving you your 15 minutes of fame.

I hope that you're as keen to repeat your hilarous gag when death and destruction on the scale of last year's Asian tsunami hits closer to where you live.

Sorry, but I hardly think that this is the sort of thing that you make light of, especially as we've all had a recent reminder of just how deadly offshore (and even onshore) earthquakes can be.

We Really Aren't Prepared

[Soloact]

This earthquake didn't really rattle us very much locally (Eureka CA area), but it triggered the tsunami warning from 2001 to 2113 PDT, and was fully lifted at 2155 PDT. The warning came via email to those of us who subscribe to the Tsunami Warning Center emails. However, the email wasn't sent out until about 10 minutes after the quake, and didn't set off the Emergency Broadcast System on the radio for about another 5 minutes after the emails. Folks, in 15 minutes, a Tsunami could have already happened locally. Even though the watch/warning was broadcast, most locals just shrugged it off, or didn't even hear about it until I mentioned it to them over an hour later. The local supermarket has been promoting Emergency Awareness lately, but in view of the reaction of the people, we really aren't prepared should the epicenter of a 7+ quake happen under our feet, or should a Tsunami actually hit. Fortunately, I live inland far enough and high enough to be above a wave line similar to that of the Indian Ocean tsunami of last December. But I don't live far enough away to not have to clean up bodies of non-prepared apathetic persons who become victims should one occur. I did live right on the beach, previously, and had an evacuation package and procedure ready. Others along the Coast were ready, but not enough of them. Everyone should really do a self-preparedness check to see if they are indeed ready for such an emergency. This includes those who live in earthquake, tornado, flooding, mountains (slides and fires), and hurricane areas. Prepare yourself and your neighbors today, should you have to help each other tomorrow.

Re:Earthquake? Bah....

[1u3hr]

Yeah, it always good to joke about events that can and do kill hundreds of thousands.

Slashdotters seem to think so, as long is it doesn't affect Americans. every "foreign" disaster eleicts a bunch of ethnic/outsourcing (if in Asia or particularly India) jokes, all modded "Funny". Make similar jokes about American deaths and it's an instant flamebait/troll mod. He might get away with it here since no one seems to have died.

Re:Offtopic response to sig

[Anonymous Coward]

I am aware of young boy that didn't have his small toe amputated at birth, and when he was 13 he cut his toe on a rusty piece of metal and almost died from an infection. Clearly children should have their small toe amputated.

Re:Earthquake? Bah....

[cduffy]

Ya know, there do exist Americans who think that folks who get up in arms over jokes about (say) the Twin Towers are largely uptight assholes. Quite a few of us, actually (though I'd avoid such jokes were I visiting New York, just to avoid offending local sensibilities).

Don't judge the group by the vocal (readily offended) minority. There are plenty of Americans who don't mind jokes about our own tragedies -- what better way to get it behind than with humor?

Re:Tsunami info from a former park ranger

[jrumney]

Mainly as insurance likely doesn't cover intentional demolishing of your own property.

Insurance likely doesn't cover "acts of god" either.

Re:Offtopic response to sig

[Hognoxious]

Fact is, routine circumcision was instituted for a completely spurious reason, and one that most people would not now even consider desirable.

I thought it was because, if you live in the desert[1], it's not easy to wash as often as you should.

Oh and re not eating shellfish: we have fridges now, thanks.

[1] Consider where the two main cocksnipping religions originated.

Re:And your point is?

[Dachannien]

Tsunami can strike hundreds, sometimes thousands, of miles away from where the related earthquake happens. The potential for a tsunami truly has global scope (at least as much global scope as the Xbox 360, which much of Africa has little interest in, for example).

A tsunami warning system is both a technological and sociological device, as discussed by the last linked article. While it was certainly a bit thin on details, it is probably of interest to at least some nerds, even if you personally don't give a rat's ass.

on the Richter scale?

[panic_smooth]

presumably 7.0 or whatever on the Richter scale?

seriously - on UK news channels, BBC etc, they always quote 'earthquake of strength X on the Richter scale'. personally i find this extremely annoying since it's a completely superfluous figure-of-speech - unless there's some other scale which people use to measure earthquakes.

anyone know different?

Re:And your point is?

[Just Some Guy]

Slashdot is "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters."

We're nerds, and this is news. Condition one met. This probably matters to a lot of people. Condition two met. Slashdot has never been limited to technology news (see also: politics.slashdot.org).

Slashdot had, bar none, the best 9/11 coverage in the world. Seriously. I learned far more from eyewitnesses who posted to the site than I ever did from corporate news sources. If there had really been a tsunami, you'd probably be reading the best newsfeed around.

"News for nerds" doesn't have to mean "nerd news".

Re:Earthquakes can't be usefully predicted

[Somegeek]

This is just a small nit-pick with this assertion. Sorry for dragging it out as I have.

The poster never asserted anything about predicting earthquakes based upon the average. The poster just stated that historical data shows a 200 year average, and from that data one could say that one was 'fairly likely in the near future'. That's the way averages work; we may not understand the reason behind the pattern, but if there is enough data to create a pattern, its reasonable to guess that the pattern will continue. Just because the geological time scale is huge doesn't mean that there can't be regular geological events that occur with a short frequency. For a specific example, look at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) test site in Parkfield, California:

http://quake.wr.usgs.gov/research/parkfield/ [usgs.gov]

Historical data showed earthquakes occurring in 1857, 1881, 1901, 1922, 1934, and 1966. The pattern average showed an earthquake due by around 1993. The next significant earthquake did not happen until 2004, not exactly on time, but dead accurate compared to your time span of 'millions of years'.

Regarding the advice from your friends; a scientist once told me 'Half of everything that scientists teach is wrong, and we don't know which half it is.' Much of current scientific theory is just that, someone's current theory. Take it with a grain of salt.

until an 8th magnitude quake suddenly releases ten times as much energy,

Nope. From the USGS again: "The total amount of energy released by the earthquake, however, goes up by a factor of 32."

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/recenteqsww/glossary.ht m#magnitude [usgs.gov]

Re:Timing

[SComps]

Not to be too overly critical here, but when did Slashdot become a part of the Emergency Broadcast System? Folks, it's a website not your weather radio, TV, or other accepted form of emergency notification.