cool map of quakes

Beautiful pic indeed.

I always use this one in class.

http://www.iris.edu/seismon/

Great map (I teach physical geology at my local university). It shows exactly the positions of the great subduction zones (the brightest areas), their alter-egos, the spreading centers, the less bright lineations, and the great complexity that exists in the tectonics of the Mediterranean and eastward areas.

You want to avoid earthquakes: Go to eastern Brazil, northern Quebec, northern Siberia, central Australia.

caw

New Zealand looks like a shooting star. We had a fairly large one just the other night too, but it was pretty deep (luckily).

i live at possibly the brightest point on the map (Anchorage, Alaska). We are baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad overdue for a really big quake. The last BIG ONE was the 1964 catastrophe, which I missed, thank Zeus. I was a kid in Iowa at the time.

That quake did a hell of a lot of destruction, but only nine fatalities in Anchorage. The rest of the 150 or so deaths occurred in tsunami-struck coastal villages and towns. Anchorage was then a town of about 50,000. It's now a city nearly six times that populous, with a lot more infrastructure like highway and railroad overpasses, many newer tall buildings, etc. A '64-level quake here would be really really bad now.

My big trauma today was cleaning the bear schidt off my lawn. I've had two bear incidents in the past week, likely the same damn beast. I almost ran headlong into him (a healthy industrial-strength male black bear) walking around the corner of my house back on Friday, and the next day my son chased him out of the garage, which I had just vacated about thirty seconds before, but hadn't shut the door yet.

Still, I'll take the bears before a big quake, any day.

caw

blacbird said:

i live at possibly the brightest point on the map (Anchorage, Alaska). We are baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad overdue for a really big quake. The last BIG ONE was the 1964 catastrophe, which I missed, thank Zeus. I was a kid in Iowa at the time.

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My house here in Edmonton still has damage from that earthquake.

Thanks to Teinz and lorna for those. I'm currently living on a fault line in Taiwan and we've had a few minor ones over the last few months. Also, sometimes in bed at night you can feel very slight movement, as if you're drunk but not so much fun.

Thanks for posting these. Really interesting. I've looked at quake maps for the region I live in, but seeing activity on a global scale provides a whole new perspective.

blacbird said:

Still, I'll take the bears before a big quake, any day.

caw

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Having lived through the feb quake in Christchurch, NZ, I concur. Send some bears over...please...