Carbon Hiding Bad

Article

Here I am in Montreal. I can't make fun of them now, since I'm from riot-torn Toronto. Anyway, here is a standard article on how carbon stashing is bad. It's one of those great stupid ideas that powers the economy, until it dies.

Grim Earthquake Scenario for New Madrid

Article

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — The New Madrid seismic zone is capable of producing a massive earthquake that could devastate parts of the central United States, according to a study publicly released this week by the University of Illinois.

A 7.7-magnitude temblor, the study said, could leave 3,500 people dead, more than 80,000 injured and more than 7 million homeless. In all, the study commissioned by the Federal Emergency Management Agency said the immediate economic impact would be $300 million.

Now everybody is coming out with these earthquake scenarios! :) I didn't make my story grim, it was only grim if you thought about what it meant to be without power and gas in the winter!

This study uses an M7.7, which has a 200 km fault rupture. Firm ground PGV would be around 20 cm/s. The area of devastation would be much larger than our Great Toronto Earthquake. At least these people are thinking about it! As we well know, nobody around Toronto will lift a finger....

A Reef of Shifting Silt

Article

Toronto Hydro wants to erect up to 60 turbines in Lake Ontario on a reef that runs two to four kilometers offshore, from the east end of Toronto to Ajax.

There's no stinkin' reef out there! I've done the geophysics out on the lake. There are these huge megadunes of shifting silt that roll over the exposed bedrock. They will have fun anchoring windmills in that loon shit! Oh, well, perhaps they can find some unemployed BP geologists to do that for them. :)

Hurricanes start to hit the Gulf

Now that oil spill really is the Springfield Tire Fire! I said in an earlier post I was waiting for the hurricanes, since all of those efforts were very susceptible to this. Even the drilling of the relief wells will have to stop. Here is a nifty animation of all the shit that is coming to hit the fan.

Seismic Death Trap Reactor Hearings Delayed

Article

They are waiting for 'pubic input'. Can the public get through the metaphorical g20 fence? Without getting the shit kicked out of them? :) Who knows?

Ontario Earthquake - Landslides - 1

I'm calling the Ontario earthquake, because we're the closest ones speaking English..... :) Otherwise it would be La Earthquake Quebec!

Article

With a 'Phony Five', I think 1 or 2 landslides is enough. Luckily, no families were killed. With an M5.5 along the river, which I first thought it was, then we would have a lot of them, with perhaps some deaths.

Ontario Earthquake - Fun Facts

For now, we shall leave aside the possibility that I actually caused this earthquake by releasing my anguished earthquake story 3 hours before.

This earthquake happened smack in the middle of the Western Quebec Seismic Zone. In colourful terms, I would characterize the 'fractility' as being 'Very Crunchy'. This is a zone of extremely solid rock, highly fractured, highly stressed, with high fluid activity. Normally, it would be a typical boring zone of the Canadian Shield, except for 2 things.

During the last big plate separation, there was a hotspot. Now, I have written about the hotspot controversy, but let's just say it is a local zone of hot magma rising. If you are out in the ocean plates, this sort of thing forms volcanoes, and the Hawaiian island chain, but if there is a massive lump of granite, the effect is much more subtle. Basically, it cracks the hell of the rock. This hotspot did pop out here and there, and you can see the track.

Then there was the last glaciation. This causes a great dimple in the earth through the heavy mass of kilometres of ice. Think of pressing on a beach-ball. But the very last dimple to pop out (like inflating a soccer ball), is Western Quebec.

But really, the maximum earthquake we can get there is a 'Phony Five'. I call them phony, since they put out more bark than bite. The PGV is very low, probably less than 1 cm/s at the max. They are deep, and really can't encompass a zone more than a 100 m, due to the intense fracturing. If you are on rock, and on top of this earthquake, it just disturbs you with the intense noise.

But these earthquakes ring a pure bell. If you sit on your cottage on a calm day, and watch a boat zoom across the lake, you see the planar wake. This crosses the lake without an apparent speck of decay (attenuation). We have the same with these earthquakes. The planar wave settles down to about 1 mm/s PGV, and zooms over the continent, decaying very slowly.

Now, if you are on solid ground, on the patio, drinking beer, as I was, you don't feel anything. You only feel if, if there is amplification. Most buildings will amplify by a factor of 2-5. Soft soil by a factor of 10. Soft soil in a basin, or a high rise on soft soil, a factor of 100. Smart people will start to worry if they felt this earthquake strongly in Chicago!

The Great Toronto Earthquake - 2025

It's done!

You just experienced an earthquake, and you are stunned. You've never experienced anything like this in Toronto, and nobody warned you. What the heck just happened? It started with a loud buzz and rumble, like a big truck rolling by, and then the house started to shake, and everything started crashing. You just awoke in the middle of the night, and all the power is off. Going to be tricky, since this is January, and it's 20 below outside.

All you hear are car and house alarms, wasting their batteries. Where's some light? Luckily, you have been somewhat paranoid, and have a flashlight in your night-table. "I'm glad I listened to that crazy earthquake guy."

The light goes on. Shit! I'm glad I didn't have that trophy case near my bed! Your memorial World Cup solid brass vuvuzela has punched a big hole through your computer keyboard! Could have been my head!

You are a typical young person, living in a trendy house on the beach in Toronto. As you go through the house, you see other shelves and items thrown to the floor. It's a bit more than the stuff you usually throw on the floor! "Oh, I have to phone Hank about this", and you pick up your iPhone20, with the hologram display, and use the 3D finger gestures. Damn! No signal! Double damn, no internet! You give the phone the finger, and it starts playing 'Eye of the Tiger'.

It's starting to get cold. Good thing my electric car is charged up, I can get out of here! You look outside, and the snow is starting to cover a giant pile of bricks that covers your car. Should've had that chimney fixed up years ago!

At least you are in a house. You think of all those people in 100 story condos. Their rooftop pools will have sloshed down the staircases, and they have to walk all the way down to go out to solid ice. How many will survive? Where can they go? The owners will instantly close the building to cover their rear-ends until they can get a seismic blessing.

As you walk around, you step on your old emergency radio with the wind-up crank. Do they still do radio anymore? You crank it up, and as you expect you get nothing but automated infomercials. But on one station, there is a live person:

"Nevil here! Of Nevil Radio. They told me I was a crackpot having the last live radio station, but here I am in the emergency shed. The old generator started up in the swirling blizzard. I don't know how much time I have, before everything conks out and I start to freeze, but let's give it a try, what? I'm getting this open-mike feed using my radio scanner, even though they were banned after the G20 by the Digital Copyright Act. Here it is:

"This is Chief Big of IntForce1. We may have had an earthquake, but I can't be sure of that, since it's not in any of my manuals. I don't have very many people, since they went on billion dollar holidays after our big billion dollar terrorist sweep. The annual sweeps must be working, since we've never had any real terrorists, only those crazy people we pump up. I'm sure my people will be back someday, but the airport is closed.

Normally, I'd be going to our billion dollar command centre on top of the Trump Tower, but we've had a little trouble with our luxury pool. I'm told the operators are recovering nicely. For the alternative, we'd fire up our billion dollar Transformer Armored Mobile Command Centre, but the garage door is jammed. Not much use going into the streets anyway, the snowplough operators just abandoned their trucks to run to their loved ones.

We must appear to be strong. The people always believe that behind closed blinds we have a full house. Ooops, is this mike on?

"Nevil here. Well, that feed closed fast! Lucky for us, guess who just tramped into our shack with his Inuit hunting gear on -- Crazy Earthquake Guy! Geez, you must be 90 about now!

CEqG: "Not quite, Nevil, the frost makes me look older. Too bad that sun started to cool down, made those warming guys look like idiots. Anyway, I felt that an earthquake was coming, so I started trudging over here, and looks like I was right. This is a real earthquake, not like those punk M5's in solid rock, with no PGV, all blather and no hiss!

Using my mystic earthquake sense, this was an M6.5 on the Hamilton Fault. The directivity pulse made straight for Toronto. We got hammered with a PGV of 10 cm/s. Amplification makes that 1 m/s on soft soils and the top of highrises. All the power is toast, the nuclear plants are all shut down. The only lights you see are the natural gas flares, and exploding transformers.

This will make the Big Blackout look like a picnic. The nuclear stations have no black start capability. Even if Prime Minister Justin Trudeau ordered the nukes back up, they are poisoned out, with no power to crank them up. That stupid Niagara Tunnel has probably cracked!

Nevil: "Geez, what are you going to do?" "Well, I'm going back to my igloo, where I have a nice coyote roasting. The hunting was good today!" "That sounds great, my generator is starting to sputter." "Well, come along then!"

The radio station went dead. You know that no help is coming, until Mel Lastman Jr,Jr,Jr, calls in the army. You prepare the house for freeze-up, draining all the water, etc. Like the CEqG, you also have full arctic camping gear, and can melt snow for water. You crack open the window a bit, start the camp stove, and prepare for the long wait.

ps. - Apr 2, 2024 -- This seems to have become a popular doomer story.  The earthquake is most likely not coming in 2025.  I just wrote this, because it is as likely as any other earthquake in the world.  Just roll the dice.

Downgraded to M5.0

Ok, no landslides, nobody killed, just a puny M5.0 in the middle of nowhere. Can't really do anything at that level. Everybody go back to blissful ignorance.....

I've been increasing my novelette.

You just experienced an earthquake, and you are stunned. You've never experienced anything like this in Toronto, and nobody warned you. What the heck just happened? It started with a loud buzz and rumble, like a big truck rolling by, and then the house started to shake, and everything started crashing. You just awoke in the middle of the night, and all the power is off. Going to be tricky, since this is January, and it's 20 below outside.

All you hear are car and house alarms, wasting their batteries. Where's some light? Luckily, you have been somewhat paranoid, and have a flashlight in your night-table. "I'm glad I listened to that crazy earthquake guy."

The light goes on. Shit! I'm glad I didn't have that trophy case near my bed! Your memorial World Cup solid brass wuwuzela has punched a big hole through your computer keyboard! Could have been my head!

You are a typical young person, living in a trendy house on the beach in Toronto. As you go through the house, you see other shelves and items thrown to the floor. It's a bit more than the stuff you usually throw on the floor! Oh, I have to phone Hank about this, and you pick up your iPhone20, with the hologram display, and use the 3D finger gestures. Damn! No signal! Double damn, no internet! You give the phone the finger, and it starts playing 'Eye of the Tiger'.

It's starting to get cold. Good thing my electric car is charged up, I can get out of here! You look outside, and the snow is starting to cover a giant pile of bricks that covers your car. Should've had that chimney fixed up years ago!

First Damage Pictures for Eastern Earthquake

Wow, Twitter and twitpic are amazing! Better than all the stupid gov't systems.

PGV estimate will be a few cm/s on soft ground. I'm still waiting for Leda Clay landslides.

Earthquake Ignorance Sparks Panic!

Maybe that's true. I just heard about the building evacuations in Toronto. How much are they going to pay seismic witchdoctors for a structural evaluation? What would happen if we had a real earthquake?

Like Geofish Totally Nails this Earthquake!

Yeah I totally predicted it! I just felt earthquakey, and wrote my first installment on my new blogelnovelette. It must have been the electromagnetic energy radiating from the magic stones!

Wow, the comments have been amazing! The nuclear plants have called me, but they won't get through, since my wife is talking to everybody about the earthquake! This sloshed coffee in Toronto! Can you imagine the total wasted coffee? Must be millions!

Ottawa has had power blackouts, buildings evacuated. I'm waiting for landslide reports, but these guys won't have the phones working! The nuclear regulator, CNSC-toadies, probably don't have their phones working! Remember to try to call them!

This is fun, until I find out somebody was killed. Most likely, nobody got injured. We've been lucky that way, no earthquakes where it would really hurt, just way out on rock, in the middle of nowhere. Now under Toronto..... well, stay tuned to the story.....

Earthquake in Canada - Nuclear Plants Must Report

Ok, all youze newsie-guys! Phone up your local nuclear plant! They are supposed to have instrument readings on this earthquake! Ha ha! This is a 'reportable event', and they must report effects to the authorities. Do you think they've done anything on this since I left? I pity them............

M5.5 Quebec

Ok! Now the real stuff comes in. Maybe there won't be landslides, since this is farther away from the river.

M5.7 Buckingham Quebec

Yeah Twitter! Those government central systems are useless when it comes to a real earthquake. I'll write that into my story! Amazing, just as I was thinking this is good earthquake weather, I wrote the first installment of my Great Toronto Earthquake story. Pow!! An hour later this comes in! Of course, the authorities would rather spend a billion dollars looking at a suspicious suitcase than doing anything about earthquakes!

This type of earthquake will trigger landslides! Everybody should evacuate the river. They should run radar on the river shoreline before people are allowed back. This could be deadly!

Earthquake!!

Wife and dog just felt the earthquake in the house. I was drinking beer on the patio and didn't feel anything. I am helpless as anybody in finding out what really happened.

New Linear Accelerator in Seismic Zone

Article

You've got to love hot seismic zones! That's where all the intellectual excitement is, and they love to install nuclear research reactors! Wow, I would love to see what this baby will do when it's slammed by an earthquake, all juiced up! Of course, I wouldn't want to be close! As well, this will provide good measurements for those 'nanoquakes' that seem to affect linear accelerators. I don't think the rock is very stable there.

Call me old-fashioned, but I want stable rock for these things. But stable rock is always under horribly boring farming communities, full of anti-technology Luddites. Oh well.............

Work in progress - 1 - The Great Toronto Earthquake 2025

Ah this is painful! I'm going to do it piece by piece!

I am writing this, to be filed away, until that fateful day.

You just experienced an earthquake, and you are stunned. You've never experienced anything like this in Toronto, and nobody warned you. What the heck just happened? It started with a loud buzz and rumble, like a big truck rolling by, and then the house started to shake, and everything started crashing. You just awoke in the middle of the night, and all the power is off. Going to be tricky, since this is January, and it's 20 below outside.

All you hear are car and house alarms, wasting their batteries. Where's some light? Luckily, you have been somewhat paranoid, and have a flashlight in your night-table. "I'm glad I listened to that crazy earthquake guy."

The light goes on. Shit! I'm glad I didn't have that trophy case near my bed! Your memorial World Cup solid brass wuwuzela has punched a big hole through your computer keyboard!

Niagara Tunnel Revels in its Glory

Article

A fine article written by the Robbins Company, about the great performance of their machine at the Niagara Tunnel. Sure, they've learned some 'hard lessons', but they've come through with glory. :)

I got this by blog searching for Niagara Tunnel. For years I've been the only one, but Geopracnet came up with this reference.

The Curse of the Lawnboy

My old neighbour has a very old Lawnboy. This is a 2 stroke lawn mower that has been thrown out by every single rational person in the world. I'm not saying anything on what this implies for the neighbour.

And it never works! He attempts to start it, and there is a huge cloud of smoke. It reminds me of the BP oil disaster. If I'm outside and he tries to use it, I go inside. All summer, I keep the windows closed and use the air conditioner, just in case. I would do that anyway for the smog of Toronto, but I keep that one side extra tight.

So, once it starts, it just stinks with less smoke. It would be great if I just went in for the time he takes to mow the lawn, but it always conks out! Right now it's just sitting there in the middle of his lawn, torturing me, until he decides to tackle it again. I think it's too stinky for his shed. He complains about it never working right, and I've tried every sort of hint, including the subtle one "You should buy a new lawn mower!".

Sure, I have a bbq, and I love salmon on a plank, which really smokes up, so I'm no saint (but we have a hybrid!). Still, for 20 years, I have wished every sort of death upon that horrible thing. :)

Ontario selling everything to pay for Niagara Tunnel

Article

A secret “white paper” that recommends selling chunks of Ontario’s liquor, lottery and electricity corporations—raising up to $12 billion—will be debated by Premier Dalton McGuinty’s cabinet as early as next week, the Star has learned.

Liberal insiders say the study urges the government to meld the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, Ontario Power Generation, Hydro One, and the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. into one “super corporation.”

Maybe not, but the cost overruns for the tunnel make up a good percentage of this money. :)

Niagara tunnel still shut down

They won't be reporting on their web site, because there is nothing happy to push. However, I read on the hydro rag, that they are replacing a good hunk of it. I'm sure that wasn't in the original contract! The TBM was supposed to zoom through that rock like a tuna in the sea! If the temporary lining holds, these delays are a good thing, since the rock will be given time to squeeze in a little bit, thus relieving the stress. And with this infinite money flowing in, I'm feeling more confident that they will complete the tunnel, albeit at a horrendous multiple of the original estimate, and with a lower water pressure (head), due to the all the curves they sharpened to make up some time.

NRU ready to fire up

Article

It's all done and they are going to fill it up and start the neutrons. No more reason to spill a lot of blogs over this... :)

Stupid Particular People Who Live on a Southern European Peninsula

THIS IS NOT AN INSULT TO EVERY ITALIAN THAT EVER LIVED! Even though I don't like their soccer team. :)

This is just an insult to the crazy Italians that are charging earthquake scientists with failure to predict an earthquake! This is an actual criminal charge! It's as stupid as the Swiss bringing criminal charges against a geologist for causing an earthquake. They dropped that soon enough when the world started to laugh at them. Unfortunately, I don't think these Italians are that smart.

Dear SSA Members,

Many of you have perhaps already learned of this situation and received a request of sign-on support from Earth science colleagues in Italy or elsewhere.

SSA leaders regard this issue as important to both the Italian and international seismological communities, and ask that you kindly consider the request and read the open letter at www.mi.ingv.it/open_letter/

Sincerely,

Rick Aster

Seismological Society of America President

Begin forwarded message:

From: Alberto Michelini

Date: June 14, 2010 3:41:48 PM PDT

Subject: Letter of support for Italian earthquake scientists indicted for failing to predict the L'Aquila Earthquake

Dear colleagues and friends,

Two weeks ago the L’Aquila Prosecutor’s office indicted of manslaughter the members of the National High Risk Committee that met in L'Aquila one week before the Mw6.3 earthquake.

The charges are for failing to provide a short term alarm to the population before the earthquake struck, killing more than 300 people.

The president of INGV, Enzo Boschi (member of the High Risk Committee), and the director of the National Earthquake Center, Giulio Selvaggi (just accompanying Boschi to the meeting as technical specialist), are among the scientists in seismology and earthquake engineering now under investigation together with some civil protection officials.

We think that the allegations against the scientists are completely unfounded and we look for support on this from the international scientific community working on earthquakes and in the Earth sciences in general.

We invite you to sign the letter addressed to the President of the Italian Republic, published at the the web page www.mi.ingv.it/open_letter/ . We also would be glad if you could extend this invitation to other seismologists that can possibly share our initiative.

We hope that by this action we can increase the awareness of people on earthquake risk reduction through education, preparedness, and a long term program of building reinforcement.

Thank you in advance for your support

Daniela Pantosti

Alberto Michelini

Alessandro Amato

Massimo Cocco

Ingrid Hunstad

Warner Marzocchi

Claudio Chiarabba

Massimiliano Stucchi

**********************************************************

Alberto Michelini

Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)

Centro Nazionale Terremoti

Via di Vigna Murata, 605

00143 ROMA, Italy

Ph. +39 06 51860611, e-mail: alberto.michelini@ingv.it

**********************************************************

World Cup Unwatchable

OMG! Those horns! It's like a bumblebee in my head! I can't even watch it long enough to get bored.

Ottawa Tunnel Sinking

Article

Watson said no engineer he had talked to about the downtown tunnel believed the $735-million estimate of its price was “anywhere near the real cost.”

I can't have much comment on this. I think the tunnel will cost more than twice this estimate. It is going through some nasty rock.

Dynamic Earth

Article

In this article, they explain that the earth 'jiggles' in a random walk on a very small scale. They use my favourite thing, that 'Everything is fractal!". I've written quite a bit on this. But really, there is no such thing as a solid block of granite, even though those nuclear waste people imagine there is. All the rock is full of fractures, and they are full of fluids. As the fluids flow, there are little shifts. In a big fault zone, such as Hamilton, there is a concentration of fractures, and an intense fluid flow. That's when we have earthquakes. But 'stable' zones have little silent 'teensy quakes' all the time.

Blame Canada

Article

OTTAWA—An international body of nuclear medicine slammed the Canadian government for failing to prevent a global shortage of medical isotopes by coming through on its promise to replace the aging reactor at Chalk River, Ont.

“Canada assured us there would be a long-term solution and Canada needs to deliver on those assurances,” Dr. Robert Atcher, past-president of the Society of Nuclear Medicine, told reporters at an annual general meeting of the organization in Salt Lake City, Utah on Monday.

Atcher said the United States halted its plans for domestic production of medical isotopes because the Canadian government promised the Maple 1 and Maple 2 reactors would fulfill the need for the radioactive particles.

OMG! They believed us! lololololololololol

Cat People

Article

You know how people with cats are crazy? I mean, they are all absolutely crazy! I have a dog, and that's okay. :)

Well, in the eternal war between cat and dog owners, comes this little gem. A little shot of toxoplasmosis, and you may have less lives than your cat! Or perhaps you'll turn into a Cat Lady?? You don't see dogs with this stuff, huh?

Oil and Hurricanes

Animation

So, I'm following all this drama in the Gulf of Mexico, and I think: "When's the damn hurricane going to hit?" Well, now I can look at a very nice animation, and see that there isn't much going on in the swirly department. Good luck to them!

Bay Sleazy

This is one of my rare consumer stories. We bought a Timex watch at the Bay, and it never kept time. But we lost the receipt. So, taking it back was a nightmare! First, the girls didn't want to help anybody, they were chit-chatting with each other. Finally, you could tear one away by being obnoxious. She immediately tears back: "How do we know you bought it here?". "Because I was stupid enough to buy it here. Can't you trace by the credit card like most normal stores?". "No, How do you expect us to do that?".

"The watch is defective, you have to exchange it." "No we don't!"

They sent my wife to the very nice clock man who checked the battery and said the watch is defective.". But no hope getting it exchanged.

I'm now contacting Timex Canada. Hopefully, they have an enlightened 'fix-up' policy, like Oakley, or some other places. But I'm not holding my breath.

Nuclear waste happiness

Article

For some reason, the Canadian wasties have got their PR machine pumped up, and there are some articles on their grand plans. Perhaps the Auditor General is after them? They certainly aren't actually doing anything, except trying to find the worst geology with the best community. Unfortunately, we know how these people do geology....

NRU Done

Article

Wow, they fire it up in July! I'm sure the crew has done a great job, since they get laid off right after it works! :)

And if it doesn't work, they get employment forever!

Of course, nobody mentions this is a Seismic Death Trap, but that's for another day...

Nothing bad's happened at Niagara Tunnel

May 29th 2010 -

The TBM is still undergoing scheduled maintenance and is not expected to begin mining until June 20th. The first of two arch forms has been moved into position just inside the tunnel entrance.

On Thursday May 27th, the first concrete pouring on the arch form bay (12.5 meters) took place. The two arch forms are designed to take turns pouring every other section in succession. The arch forms when fully functioning will attain an average rate of 21 meters per day.

Work continues on the new air vent shaft. The maximum outer diameter of the shaft is currently being drilled. Before this vent shaft becomes fully functional it will need to be lined and grouted. In addition, the Invert Carrier will have to pour concrete beyond the location of the adit.

Work on the Invert Carrier resumed this past week.

Work on the Restoration Carrier continues reinforcing and reshaping the crown of the tunnel. Shotcrete spraying continues in multiple 400 millimeter layers to reshape the crown damaged from previous overbreak.

Yeah!