macdoc wrote:I put this in science as I thought it might kick off an earthquake discussion....
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/wor ... le1483835/
This a monster give how the Richter scale works...
The only one larger that comes to mind is Alaska 9.1 which was instrumental in my anti-theism and confirmed my atheism ( story for another time and place )
Anyone have a list of the biggest? ( too lazy to look )
anyone been in a sizeable one??
I was sitting having coffee when a teeny tiny one hit Ontario - woke my daughter up and rattled a few dishes.
Felt very odd.....one is not used o the house moving even a little bit...
Having grown up in California I've gone through more quakes than you can count on both hands, four of which (Long Beach in 1938, Tehachipi in 1952, Northridge in 1972, and Loma Prieta in 1989) exceeded 7.0 and caused extensive damage and took lives.
There's hardly a weirder feeling than when the earth shakes under your feet and
everything moves. Suddenly, the earth feels like jelly and you know there's no escaping, nowhere to hide, nowhere to run. The only thing one can do is try to get out of the way of falling debris or collapsing shit.
MacDoc wrote:
I find it kind of strange that even tho we don't know where and when billions are spent on earthquake solutions, building codes etc yet for a known peril of climate change there seems reluctance in some circles ( tho the insurance companies are certainly taking action in risk areas...)
Why this difference...is it because it is anthro induced there some difference in risk perception from the somewhat random ( tho risk regions are clear ) acts that an earthquake entails??
The difference probably involves the difference between
in-your-face catastrophic destruction and the more subtle appearing damages caused by global warming, much of which has remained remote from us.
An earthquake produces destruction and death you can't miss, it's right there before your very eyes; climate change produces destructive change that's generally quite subtle (so far) and hard to perceive.
Some jurisdictions have spent gobs of money on earthquake preparedness, California certainly has, but others in risk areas remain woefully behind, Seattle and Victoria/Vancuver in British Columbia, and probably Alaska. I don't think much has been spent in the Madrid fault area in the central US either.
And despite what California has spent there's still a stock of hundreds of thousands of buildings and bridges and tunnels and dams in the State that remain vulnerable because they are old and weren't built to modern standards and have not been upgraded to them. Nearly all highway and RR bridges have been upgraded.
It's hard to imagine, but the earth contains a very large core that's so hot it's in a molten state. That makes the earth a very dynamic place, which manifests in earthquakes and volcanos and mid-ocean rifts. Eventually of course, all the energy in that molten core will dissipate and leave the earth in a static state, no longer rattling around the way it does today. That of course, is a very long way off in time.
The problem with climate change is that we are building it in as we go and by the time we wake up to its realities and act to cut GHG emissions, it will be too late to prevent what appear to be some very nasty consequences.
