News 8.8 earthquake in Chile

[RisingFury]

8.8 quake in Chile kills (at least) 214 people and sends out a tsunami.

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/02/27/chile.quake/index.html

 

[Pilot7893]

Woah. Mother Nature sure seems to be very angry recently. Especially considering that storm Thursday night.

 

[unknown_orbiter]

2012 IS APPROACHING! THESE ARE ALL SIGNS!!! I TOLD YOU WE WOULD ALL DIE!! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES, FEAR THE DATE!!! HOP ONTO YOUR DELTA GLIDERS AND ESCAPE 2012!!!1111ONEONEONEONE


... all these earthquakes in South America do point to something going on geologically with the South American plates... probably just growing pains.

 

[Urwumpe]

Only 8.8... you make it sound like it was a major Earthquake...

and all these Earthquakes in South America? We just have a typical Earthquake progression:

North American Plate: California, December 2009
Caribbean Plate: Haiti, January 2010.
South American Plate: Chile, February 2010

If I can read the arrows on the tectonic map correctly at this time and if the hypothesis of earthquake progression is correct, the next one will be southern pacific region, after a minor series in the Nazca plate. I am no expert there, but at least I got the continents right this year...

 

[Eagle]

Is this offensive? I made it.

[Mod Note: If you have to ask, it is. When in doubt, don't post!]
Well I thought it was funny.

 

[Pilot7893]

Is this offensive? I made it.

I...don't get it.

 

[unknown_orbiter]

Only 8.8... you make it sound like it was a major Earthquake...

Ummmm the largest earthquake ever recorded was 9.5, and this earthquake is considered one of the top 5 ever recorded... so how was it "only" 8.8?

 

[TSPenguin]

The (original) Richter scale is a very bad one and only used to communicate to the public these days.
It is roughly logarithmic and originally ended at 10.

You can read more on Wikipedia.

 

[jedidia]

Only 8.8... you make it sound like it was a major Earthquake...

what now... 8.8 is nothing major since when?

 

[obiwan]

Mmmhh, I don't know you, but I feel it major. Of course, is not the same if it's under your feet.... And I still recall the one on 1985 here....

 

[Urwumpe]

There are only 10 kinds of people. Those who can handle irony and those who can't.

I thought the 8.8 alone is hint enough...

 

[KKinsane]

I heard they took it down a notch, ergo this quake would be 9.8...

either way, it was haarp. 3 days after a tsunami hits, THREE DAYS, and yet with the entire pacific ocean on alert for the first day nowhere else gets hit too bad.

also i've seen haarp's activity data for the first day so i'm not just spouting tin foil hat wearing propaganda here I research things before I come to a conclusion. everyone here is used to azimuth's right, what is 220(degrees) relative to alaska? (ie SSE)

 

[jedidia]

There are only 10 kinds of people. Those who can handle irony and those who can't.

ah... I usually have no problems Identifying it, but in this case it was indeed completely lost on me. My fault I guess.

 

[Arthur Dent]

Various news sources are reporting that the earthqake has shifted the earth axis by a few centimetres. This shortens the day a by a few microseconds

 

[Notebook]

I thought I'd slept later today.

N.

 

[Urwumpe]

I heard they took it down a notch, ergo this quake would be 9.8...

either way, it was haarp. 3 days after a tsunami hits, THREE DAYS, and yet with the entire pacific ocean on alert for the first day nowhere else gets hit too bad.

also i've seen haarp's activity data for the first day so i'm not just spouting tin foil hat wearing propaganda here I research things before I come to a conclusion. everyone here is used to azimuth's right, what is 220(degrees) relative to alaska? (ie SSE)

:rofl:

 

[ex-orbinaut]

I find this business about the earthquake shortening the days a bit hard to believe, even by the small variation mentioned...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20100302/sc_space/chileearthquakemayhaveshorteneddaysonearth

 

[Arthur Dent]

What happened to the other earthquake related posts of today? I could have sworn that there were some more posts regarding the earth axis tilt? Maybe a glitch in the Matrix...

@topic Even if the day/year is shortened by a few milli- or microseconds, it could have a major impact. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think some atomic clocks probably need to be readjusted.

 

[tblaxland]

@topic Even if the day/year is shortened by a few milli- or microseconds, it could have a major impact. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think some atomic clocks probably need to be readjusted.

No atomic clocks need to be adjusted since they are atomic, ie, their operation is independent of the rotation of the earth. If anything needed adjusting, it would be the relationship between our time scale of convenience (UTC) that approximates solar time and the the atomic clock time scale (TAI). EDIT: The difference between the two is formally known as leap seconds.

Anyway, day length varies significantly over time on the order of milliseconds:

And I see no sudden changes here:

Note: the last data point there is from 2010-03-01
Source: International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service.

 

[Bj]

8.8 main (whatever its called)

then;

5.5 aftershock
Strong aftershocks hit quake-devastated central Chile

Found this on wiki

Amazing uses of GPS, even tells us the direction of plate movement.