Monday, February 21, 2011

New Zealand Earthquake M6.3

Ok, that's a serious aftershock!  I was thinking that they didn't have a 'real' M7, because the aftershocks were small, but this is big.  Maybe it's not a real aftershock, but has moved into new territory, since it seems to be at the boundary of the fault.

7 comments:

Civdis said...

I just saw that, Was wondering how long it would take you to blog it - fast as usual. This one seems to be closer to the city than the big one was. The city may have a sank a few more inches. This area seems to have particularly bad soil conditions susceptable to liquifaction.

Harold Asmis said...

This appears to be quite bad, and on the edge of the previous zone, so I might not even call it an aftershock, but rather a fault domino. Earthquakes tend to march down faults. Boy those insurers are really going to get pissed!!

Civdis said...

Is most of the damage from the previous quake related to liquifaction? Do you expect the same hear

By the way - I hate word verifications - they slow me down

Harold Asmis said...

Their soil is the worst. I expect a lot of soil effects, since this is right at the city, and the PGV's could be as strong as the original, or even greater.

Anonymous said...

multiple deaths and massive destruction.

Kraks said...

LIKE THE LIVE FEED.
oops. Caps Lock.

"Earthquakes tend to march down faults."
So there's the plate margins, then inland effects from that, then intraplate faults from history.

How to put this query...other than spreading rifts, do you know of any areas where there seems to be "new" cracking ?

I didn't say "fault" because that seems to imply "historic" or "pre-existing".

By the way, I apologise for any implication I thought you were nuts. I was referring to the "Planet X" type sites discussing New Madrid.

I think it fairer to say you are cracking some tough nuts with weapons of mass satirisation. Or something like that.

Harold Asmis said...

I think the PGV is doubled from the first earthquake.

Solid rock is hardly ever involved in an earthquake because there are usually fractures all around. This is also the experience in mining. One earthquake in northern Canada may have fractured solid rock.