Upsurge in Big Earthquakes Predicted for 2018 (theguardian.com) 88
hcs_$reboot writes:
"Scientists say the number of severe quakes is likely to rise strongly next year because of a periodic slowing of the Earth's rotation," reports the Guardian. "They believe variations in the speed of Earth's rotation could trigger intense seismic activity, particularly in heavily populated tropical regions. Although such fluctuations in rotation are small -- changing the length of the day by a millisecond -- they could still be implicated in the release of vast amounts of underground energy, it is argued."
The theory goes that the slowdown creates a shift in the shape of the Earth's solid iron and nickel "inner core" which, in turn, impacts the liquid outer core on which the tectonic plates that form the Earth's crust rest. The impact is greater on the tectonic plates near some of the Earth's most populous regions along the Equator, home to about a billion people. Scientists from the University of Colorado looked at all earthquakes registering 7 and up on the Richter scale since the turn of the 20th century. In this timeframe, the researchers discovered five periods of significantly greater seismic activity.
The seismic activity follows a five-year period of slowing in the earth's rotatio, and "This link is particularly important because Earth's rotation began one of its periodic slowdowns more than four years ago," according to the article.
"The Earth is offering us a five-year heads-up on future earthquakes," says one of the researchers, adding "The inference is clear. Next year we should see a significant increase in numbers of severe earthquakes."
The theory goes that the slowdown creates a shift in the shape of the Earth's solid iron and nickel "inner core" which, in turn, impacts the liquid outer core on which the tectonic plates that form the Earth's crust rest. The impact is greater on the tectonic plates near some of the Earth's most populous regions along the Equator, home to about a billion people. Scientists from the University of Colorado looked at all earthquakes registering 7 and up on the Richter scale since the turn of the 20th century. In this timeframe, the researchers discovered five periods of significantly greater seismic activity.
The seismic activity follows a five-year period of slowing in the earth's rotatio, and "This link is particularly important because Earth's rotation began one of its periodic slowdowns more than four years ago," according to the article.
"The Earth is offering us a five-year heads-up on future earthquakes," says one of the researchers, adding "The inference is clear. Next year we should see a significant increase in numbers of severe earthquakes."
Uhmm.... since when do.... (Score:1, Interesting)
Re: Uhmm.... since when do.... (Score:1)
Since that study, I'd wager.
Re: (Score:1)
They're not predicting specific earthquakes, they're just pointing out that, based on what appears to be a cycle, we'll probably see more of them next year that we have each of the past few years.
Re:Uhmm.... since when do.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Uhmm.... since when do.... (Score:2)
Re: Uhmm.... since when do.... (Score:4, Funny)
Since a long time ago, Jr.
Since a long time ago.
Re: (Score:2)
More to the point, since when in the fuck did we start predicting "periodic slowdowns in the Earth's rotation??" I smell unsubstantiated confusion, Guardian-style...
The earth's rotation has been slowing steadily all the time. Would that not mean a steady increase in quake activity?
Re: (Score:2)
The earth's rotation has been slowing steadily all the time. Would that not mean a steady increase in quake activity?
It would indeed. Now when you're done begging the question, check the initial statement you made. Has the world really been slowing "steadily"? Hint: The result of deviation against the SI day measurement has an upwards trend, but it also is a very wiggly graph.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm going to guess that it is due to mag. North moving "a fair bit" right now. And while I'm guessing, I am going to guess that something _slowing down_ would be much less likely to "shake, rattle and roll" than something speeding up.
Re: (Score:2)
More to the point, since when in the fuck did we start predicting "periodic slowdowns in the Earth's rotation??" I smell unsubstantiated confusion, Guardian-style...
It's worded poorly.
The "periodic" part is the frequency at which they adjust the clocks to suit the Earth.
The Earth always has been, and always will be slowing it's rotation as long as it has a star to orbit and a moon orbiting it. Stuff happening on and inside the Earth can change the rate of rotation slowing.
I am skeptical that earthquakes have a periodic pattern tied to rotation, perhaps only as a secondary effect of geology changing (both earthquakes and rotation change due to tectonics.)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Great. I can expect next year to be filled with "Global Warming Causes Earthquakes!" stories. Yay.
Here is one just to piss you off. As the loss of Greenland Ice cap accelerates in speed due to global warming and many millions of tonnes of ice quickly calve off into the Greenland Sea the reduction in weight of the ice cap over the land will result in upthrust and very large earth quakes and perhaps volcanoes where there have been few and few are known to exist. The same also applies to the continent of Antarctica as it loses the ice cap. So yes natural and man made global warming can cause seismic events
Re: (Score:2)
> and is scientifically predictable in the same way that other huge events like a Maunder Minimum of the sun are predictable.
Or, indeed, the effects of increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Your parent clearly believes this is Fake Science. He wants to know who funded this study because he wants to identity the sinister globalists, anarcho-feminists, crypto-Marxists, SJWs, eco-terrorists or, I don't know... hipsters. Or something.
#MAGMA (Score:5, Funny)
Thanks a lot, Trump.
Re: (Score:1)
T is chubby, but not that chubby.
Re: (Score:1)
Documentary about this (Score:2)
There was a really great documentary about the Earth's core not only slowing down, but stopping altogether:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0298814/combined/ [imdb.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Documentary about this (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
My favorite scene is the fast-forward building of Virgil.
The worst scene is when he opens a panel and we see a protoboard with wires... I know they were in a hurry but there's 24-hours PCB shops in the USA.
I Blame the Joggers (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I Blame the Joggers (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
That made the recent negative acceleration 15 times 'faster' than usual.
It could be Three Gorges Dam filling up, moving 40 billion tonnes of water 200m further from the earth's center.
Re: (Score:2)
Did you do the calculations for that ?
Three Gorges Dam filling up (Score:2, Insightful)
Did you do the calculations for that ?
At least NASA has done those, according to Business Insider.
Effect from the dam filling to the rotation time seems to be just 0,06 microseconds.
Re:Three Gorges Dam filling up (Score:5, Interesting)
Did you do the calculations for that ?
At least NASA has done those, according to Business Insider.
Effect from the dam filling to the rotation time seems to be just 0,06 microseconds.
We've long suspected that dams could do this, simply because when you shift the weight of the water around the globe, it affects the way the globe spins on its axis. It's the same as how a figure skater can spin faster by holding her arms above her head.
Natural variations in the earth's rotation occur regularly, due to ice melt patterns and such, but it would be ill-advised to discount anthropogenic additions to a poorly understood planet-wide ecosystem. Only a planet dominated by a species that was science-challenged would make that mistake.
Re: (Score:2)
https://www.space.com/11115-ja... [space.com]
Re: (Score:1)
Re: I Blame the Joggers (Score:2)
You're joking, but it's a cycle, which reason is not fully understood yet.
Obviously there's a gradual, incremental slowdown due to tidal forces... but any speculation about cycles is just that.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: speculation about cycles (Score:2)
You need to distinguish between the past and the future.
The earth's rotation speed is precisely measurable (e.g. relative to distant stars/galaxies) and has been measured precisely for many decades. So regular slow-down, speed-up cycles in Earth's rotation speed in the past would not be speculated but rather measured.
Speculating that such regular cycles will continue into the future would be speculation about cycles, based on either just simple induction or perhaps based on some hypothesis about wobbling ir
Re: (Score:1)
I take it you're joking (Score:2)
About the rocket launches possibly causing it.
If not, please please please try to get QUANTITATIVE ! Don't demonstrate innumeracy.
Hint about how to do this:
Numbers (e.g. about relative masses and movement amounts) do not go like this:
1
10
100
1,000
1,000,000
A shitload
A metric f@ck-tonne
Quick google-search-based quantitative stab at it (Score:2)
Mass of Earth: 5.972 x 10^24 kg
Mass of molten mostly-iron core of Earth: 1.97 x 10^24 kg
Say 1 millionth part of the core represents the net wobble in the core (total wild-ass guess)
So wobbling core mass: 1.97 x 10^18 kg
Mass of SpaceX Falcon 9 FT: 549,054 kg
So number of rocket departures from Earth needed to be roughly, really roughly equivalent to effect on Earth's rotation of wobbly molten core
2.97 x 10^18 / 549,054 =
could be on the order of 3.59 x 10^12 (that is 3.59 trillion) rocket departures
(give or ta
The Charlatan Effect. (Score:4, Insightful)
Just say crap and if it happens you can claim to be "Right."
If it doesn't people tend to forget.
No downside either you are either a genius or people forget what you said.
Re:The Charlatan Effect. (Score:5, Informative)
I call this the Head Up Arse Effect. While scepticism is generally a good thing, we long ago reached the point where some people dismiss all science out of hand.
Obviously since you posted such a detailed rebuttal of their claims this doesn't apply to you. I look forward to your paper refuting these jokers'.
Re: (Score:2)
Just say crap and if it happens you can claim to be "Right."
I understand the Slashdot history of saying correlation != causation, but at what point did we become anti science enough to say "Yeah correlation but I don't believe you and THIS time it will be different!"
Mantle stickiness a factor (Score:5, Interesting)
This is the kind of prediction you don't really want to be correct about. Would have liked to see some more technical explanation, but from a little googling I see there is a 32 year cycle of slowing which the scientists think might be due to mantle and crust sticking together more, which would also mess up the magnetic field a bit. I had no idea this was a thing. There are various other causes according to wikipedia apparently such as the Indian ocean earthquake which redistributed mass. So I wonder whether there would be any impact from water that melts from arctic ice. People living at the intersection of tectonic plates tend to think about this stuff.
Two links: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://qz.com/1133304/as-eart... [qz.com]
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Rotatio? (Score:2)
slowing in the earth's rotatio
Rotation ratio?
Rotation potato?
Rotisserie potato?
A simple typo, and a good 5 minutes of day lost ;-)
"Scientists say..." (Score:1)
Time to buy ocean front property in Idaho! (Score:1)