Things are definitely rockin' and rollin' in the Middle East. This is an area that has not seen this amount of earthquake action in years! Take a look at today's snapshot below from the USGS...
The following YouTube poster has recognized many of the earthquake increases coinciding with dormant volcano steam venting and other volcanic activity. While I don't always agree with everything that he posts, he is a great one to watch regarding earthquake activity increase.
From YouTube Video Poster Below:
Uploaded by dutchsinse on Mar 12, 2012
Notice the lower left camera.. and lower right camera.. clearly showing a noticeable earthquake -- then an explosive daytime eruption... which revealed a steam VACUUM PRESSURE BLAST!!!
The vacuum in the blast was revealed by the steam in the caldera as it was forced up, and then sucked BACK into the caldera -- in less than 1 second ! Really amazing to see this!
If you're not into the scoring on this -- the mute button is always an option.. but since this is real time (silent) a few sounds help pass the multiple minutes.
Mirrored with permission from: http://www.youtube.com/cubhf137
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Here are more pieces that may suggest that a mega quake is likely.
Tohoku grim reminder of potential for Pacific Northwest megaquake
by Staff Writers
Reno NV (SPX)
Feb 22, 2012
The March 11, 2011 Tohoku earthquake is a grim reminder of the potential for another strong-motion mega-earthquake along the Pacific Northwest coast...
"The Cascadia fault line, which runs from southern Canada all the way to Northern California, could have much stronger ground-motions than those observed in Japan," Anderson, a professor of geophysics, said.
...
...Some models predict that a Cascadia earthquake will not rupture so far under the land, but if it does, the data from the Tohoku earthquake predict stronger ground motions along our west coast than those seen in Japan.
... In Cascadia, the last great earthquake occurred on January 26, 1700.
... "If you live in the Pacific northwest, look at the videos of Tohoku as a reminder to be prepared for an earthquake and tsunami."
... "There have of course been other mega-earthquakes, but this is by far the best-recorded," he said.
SOURCE: TERRA DAILY
Megaquake predicted for Pacific Northwest
02/20/2012
Feb. 20--VANCOUVER, British Columbia --Ground movements in coastal British Columbia, Washington state and Oregon suggest the Cascade region is ripe for a giant quake similar to the one that struck Japan in March, scientists said Sunday.
Such a quake would almost certainly trigger another Pacific-wide tsunami, they said at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
The most recent megaquake in the region was a magnitude-9.0 temblor southwest of Seattle in 1700, an event deduced from the resulting tsunami that hit Japan.
Another giant quake is possible where two tectonic plates are colliding in the northeastern Pacific, said Kelin Wang of the Geological Survey of Canada. Just offshore, the Juan de Fuca plate is grinding under the North American plate at the Cascadia subduction zone, an area that stretches from Vancouver Island to Northern California.
"It will produce a pretty big tsunami," Wang said in a symposium at the Vancouver Convention Center. "We know that because the tsunami generated by the 1700 event hit Japan and caused pretty large damage, comparable to the damage caused by the 1960 earthquake off Chile. So we know Cascadia is capable of producing a pretty large tsunami."
The clues to the future quake are ground stations equipped with GPS, Wang said. All of the coastal stations east of the Cascadia zone are moving east, being pushed inland as the plates collide. That indicates the fault is stuck and pressure is building, he said.
Eventually the pressure must be released, resulting in "elastic rebound" -- an earthquake.
The magnitude is difficult to forecast, but the same tectonic process was at work in Japan before last year's devastating 9.0-magnitude Tohoku quake hit March 11, he said. Before the quake, all the GPS stations in Japan were moving west, a mirror image of what's happening at Cascadia.
Japanese quake an ominous sign for B.C. 'megaquake'
BY SANDI DOUGHTON, SEATTLE TIMES MARCH 8, 2012
April 26: People looks at a ship atop a tourist hotel in Otsuchi, Iwate Prefecture, on April 26, 2011. The local government is considering leaving the vessel in place as a symbol of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
Photograph by: TORU YAMANAKA , AFP/Getty Images
VANCOUVER — Scientists are still unraveling last year's giant Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan, and some of what they're finding doesn't bode well for B.C. and the Pacific Northwest.
Detailed analyses of the way the Earth warped along the Japanese coast suggest that shaking from a Cascadia megaquake could be stronger than expected along the coasts of Washington, Oregon and British Columbia, researchers reported Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
"The Cascadia subduction zone can be seen as a mirror image of the Tohoku area," said John Anderson, of the University of Nevada.
Anderson compiled ground-motion data from the Japan quake and overlaid it on a map of the Pacific Northwest, which has a similar fault — called a subduction zone — lying offshore.
In Japan, the biggest jolts occurred underwater. The seafloor was displaced by 150 feet or more in some places, triggering the massive tsunami. But in the Northwest, it's the land that will be rocked hardest — because the Pacific coast here lies so close to the subduction zone.
What do you think about this? Hype, Hoax, Fiction, Fact, Possibility?
