Fed geologists trash Bruce Deep Thing

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Things are heating up at the old Bruce fishing hole.  The Feds don't like their simplistic flow models.

Although they attack for not considering the Cambrian, I'm still hoping somebody comes forward about the Precambrian.  Still nobody mentions grout or the pump water.

OPG credit rating

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Standard & Poors has changed the credit outlook for Ontario Power Generation to "negative," citing in part "the negative outlook on the utility's shareholder, the province of Ontario."

Now, I have to be real careful in not being catty about the 'old company'.  It doesn't do my mental health any good, and I have my pension.  :)

The Darlington rebuild comes early because they drove that plant into the ground.  All the original designers are rolling in their lawn chairs.  You can see that the slop in possible costs easily encompasses the few billion in overrun for the Niagara Tunnel, which is probably already hidden in the Darlington capital draw.

Anyway, for Christmas, I wish them the best of luck.

Nexus 4 - Me and Charlie Brown

This time it would be different!  This time I would get through and order a Nexus 4.  Whoops!  Flat on my back.  The ball was yanked away again.  Maybe next time....

Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;

The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,

And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;

But there is no joy in Mudville — mighty Google has struck out.

Update:  Turns out I never had a chance from Canada.  This is the reason why the local gas station can't suddenly sell gas for half price.  They would tie up a city block, and there would be riots.  Even Costco can't sell too cheaply lest they overflow the approach.  I'm going for an S3.  :)

OUA Women Water Polo

I had great fun with the kids camera equipment.  Here's the full list of stuff.

https://picasaweb.google.com/112688517462752633928/November252012#5814947275559624546

https://picasaweb.google.com/112688517462752633928/OUADay1

https://picasaweb.google.com/112688517462752633928/OUADay2

https://picasaweb.google.com/112688517462752633928/OUADay2Part2

https://picasaweb.google.com/112688517462752633928/November262012

https://www.youtube.com/user/tortrout?feature=mhee

Linux - Canon 2Ti video conversion

This is one fantastic camera but the video has proven to be a pain, and I have looked forever to find a way to deal with it.  First, the default is 1080p at 30 f/s.  Do not use this!  It looks sad when converted, since movies can get away with this frame rate, but not videos.  Go down a notch to 720p at 60 f/s.

The camera uses a super-compressed x264 thing that is difficult to play on anything low-powered.  I followed the instructions here, and converted to avi.  Then I use avidemux for trimming and still extraction.  It is good to have 6 processors humming away to convert these things!

Update:  the bit rate from the camera is a ridiculous 50,000k!  You can't play it on your average set-top.  Go to 5-10,000 k.

McMaster women win OUA water polo bronze

If there were any earthquakes this weekend, I didn't notice, for I was at the OUA finals for water polo.  This is my very last year because the daughter graduates - Yeah!  For the occasion, I borrowed my kids' fancy camera equipment - a Canon 2Ti and a monster telephoto lens.  I have oodles of great pictures and videos, which I will be releasing.

Here is the team photo with medals.

Tiny earthquake hits Philly

Just an M2.1.  I really think it was the crowd knocking down the doors for Black Friday.  Hope nobody was in the way!

Ontario debates fracking

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Yeah for fracking!  Fracking never did anything to anybody, but it leaves millions of gallons of rock water (much like pumping out the Bruce Pit!).  This stuff can't be dumped down the local creek without killing everything.  So they always have the bright idea of injecting it deep into the earth, out of sight, out of mind.  Here, they could destroy Toronto if they injected into the Hamilton fault (everybody hates Toronto, especially if they win the Grey Cup!).

M3.6 earthquake Illinois

I was practically giving up on earthquakes, and suddenly a whole bunch of red has come in.  This area has seen a lot of earthquake activity, so we can't rush to injection yet.  But it would be a great place to inject and get earthquakes!  :)

Like I said before, it seems that as soon as they get an earthquake, they are closing the injection site.  Not like the good old days where they would argue about it for months and keep injecting.  But they keep injecting in places where they aren't getting earthquakes right away, and that will creep up on you.

Oklahoma M2.8 earthquake - follow the highway!

I am impressed they are getting these earthquakes up the road.  Must be a heck of a lot of injection, since they are almost up into the footwall.  These earthquakes are quite shallow, which I believe, even through the uncertainties must be huge, what with the pitiful instrumentation.  For sure I can't see anything big coming out of this, since it is outside the main mechanism, but we all live for surprises??

Update:  Another earthquake just beside it.  Definitely injection.

Oklahoma M3 earthquake in new location

Wow, we haven't had earthquakes in the East for quite a while!  This is in a new location, and is hopefully a result of silly injection.  I only say that because we'll get a lot more, and I'll have something to comment on.  :)

In the past year, I've noted a trend where they probably sink a deep hole into the Precambrian and instantly get earthquakes.  Then they shut down because they don't want the bad publicity.  But they continue to inject huge volumes into the Cambrian sandstone right beside it.  One day these chickens will come home to roost.

M6.8 earthquake Kuril Islands

This is an 'every day' earthquake for this part of town.  However, I was just noting this morning that the whole Pacific Rim is aflame with dots this season, and there was this big gap that wasn't joining the party.  Now the gap is filled, and the circle is complete.

This time of year, I've noted that some pundits are wondering whether we've had a busier year than most, earthquake-wise.  This is usually a useless question, but it is always bashed around.  Just like warming cycles, nothing stays fixed to the average, so some years will always be worse than others.  But how do you measure it?  Total seismic energy?  Number of events over M5?  People killed?  You can't, so the question leaves the scientific sphere and enters philosophy (and maybe religion).

Update:  Demoted to an M6.4!

No Nexus 4 For You!

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Google is going further down the Soup Nazi route by now telling the people that got their their orders through, that they aren't getting them.  I think it's all a Big Cruel Joke.  They only had a dozen of these things lying around, and they wanted to see all the puppy dogs jumping at the hanging meat.

I can just imagine them as the French Knights, taunting everybody outside the wall, while drinking their free Lattes, and playing Fussball.  "Euw yeu stoopid English!".  I am resigned to writing IOU's under the Christmas tree, just like in the good old days of the latest Nintendo.  :(

Bruce deep waste thing extra questions

This is a nice report on the extra questions raised.  Lots of good geology, but no intelligent questions.  As I expect, they will go to the sinking of the shaft by blasting, and that should be fun.

LInux - check your Google Chrome

One thing you learn in Linux is that no matter how stupid you feel, there are a lot of kindred souls out there.  At one time, Google Chrome had a separate update repository.  I would regularly get updates.  At some point, however, it changed to the main repositories.  I didn't get the memo!

So today I was wondering why my version was stuck at 15, when everybody was talking about 23 or 25 (Flash sandbox).  I reinstalled it from their web site, and wow, it was at 23!  Then I used Synaptic, and it was there!  I use Debian.

No hope for Nexus 4 in Canada

Here I am, up at 6 am, and there is no Nexus 4.  :(   I just read that the earlier world sold out within seconds.  What's to stop them shopping here?  Would the Canadian store have a shipping restriction?  Boo hoo.

Update:  Canada hasn't even opened!  Of course, it's just 2 guys in a garage, drinking beer.  The headlines shall blare:  "It's a Google-Quake!  Brittle House Collapsed to Rubble"

Update2:  It appears that sometime during the night, Bob and Doug did open the store for a couple of minutes.  No notifications though, so they broke their promise to me.  :(

Alaska M6.4 earthquake

This is a tiny earthquake for the region, but it is deep in the ocean crust, so I find it interesting.  Must be some high stresses there!  The whole Alaska area has been lit up like a Christmas tree, so I watch it with interest.

Alaskan Christmas!

I once did a big study of the 64 quake.  It was all soft soil damage, so I doubt Anchorage will do well the next time.  Decrepit old buildings on rock didn't have their toilets cracked.  If we had instruments we would have found a PGV of under 10 cm/s on rock, and 1-200 cm/s on soil.  I wonder if we even have the instruments now?

M6.8 earthquake - Burma

I like using the old name.  I think the old generals changed it just to be miserable.  Anyway, I just like the picture here, with India pushing away, and the borders full of earthquakes.  Pretty standard earthquake for this area.

A seismic study of injection earthquakes

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But however one views it, Frohlich said, industry and government officials need to take the issue of man-made earthquakes seriously as drilling spreads across the country to more densely populated areas.

They a seismic study around the airport in Dallas, which caused the injection wells to be closed down.  This is a good article, and I'm glad that scientists are putting some money along the lines I have been pushing for some time now.  As you know, it is a curse to be ahead of your time...  :(

They are now up to the position that high-volume injection into a fault causes the earthquakes.  They don't mention that the only place for earthquakes is the Precambrian, for then it would follow it is a Precambrian fault, and they have ignored the basement for years.  The injectors then state they can avoid these areas because of seismic imaging.  Are they imaging the basement?

I am pushing that the latest Kentucky quakes are a result of deep injection.  Either they are high-volume injecting directly into the mega-thrust, or their massive injection into the Cambrian is finally leaking.  I fully expect some bigger quakes before they shut down.

More earthquakes hit Kentucky

2 more little earthquakes.  This is soooo injection!  As usual there aren't any maps, so we'll have to wait for a report from the scene.   I don't know how quick they'll be to turn off the juice, so maybe we can get a 5?

M4.3 Kentucky earthquake

This is along a NE trend, so it is definitely on a mega-thrust.  That whole area has been interesting since it has produced a lot of little earthquakes, and no big ones.  It probably doesn't have the water, but then again, why so many earthquakes?  This is in the middle of nowhere, probably coal country, so perhaps they are trying injection for coal seam gas.

Update:  This is near to a big purchase of wastewater injection wells, so I'm fairly confident that this is injection.  That's unusual, since most injection into the mega-thrusts has stopped.

Ancient Mayans caused climate change

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Too Much Breathing!

Very sad.  A century of drought, caused by them, because we know that these things are always the fault of humans.  :)

Upper Caribbean earthquake cluster spreads

I'm indulging in pure wild speculation here, which I can do, since nobody listens to me.  All the other people have to keep their mouths shut.  This seismic cluster started as a very small spot above the Virgin Islands.  It has always produced M3's.  As such I have said that it was interesting, but meant nothing.

Now it spreads, and I no longer believe it is caused by fluid movement.  It is a real 'slow' earthquake, or stress adjustment.  Most likely it still means nothing, but I can go wild here.  As we know the strike-slip fault under Haiti activates the upper fault, and moves on to Jamaica.  (a historical trend of one!).  This has led me to dream that the whole upper fault 'marches' like other such faults, in that a big earthquake on one section eventually causes the next to fail (Right Istanbul?).

This cluster has spread from the upper fault (strike-slip or subduction, who knows?), and goes right up to the lower one.  The only thing missing is that the size of the earthquakes should be increasing, which they aren't.  If that happens, then we can expect a major earthquake.  If the whole thing just dies down, then it's back to sleep for everyone!

USNRC Head is a Geologist - wants earthquake studies

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This won't go far, but it's nice to see.  When the plants were being built, there was a big burst of seismic and geologic studies for the East.  Then, they got in some weird studies which led them to believe they were totally immune to earthquakes, and not a penny was spent on seismic monitoring and such.

Without nuclear money, the seismic monitoring is pathetic in the States.  There has never been a seismic reflection study showing the Precambrian megathrusts.  So sad.

Vancouver M6.3 earthquake, probably triggered

You see that beautiful straight line up by the island?  That's what ripped for the last earthquake.  Probably the largest that section can hold, thus it reinforced the topography.  That's a general rule for everything, the largest earthquake is the one doing the landscaping, all the small earthquakes build up to that.

That straight line points directly at this earthquake, which is in a dog's breakfast of old spreading ridges.  You'll notice that the subduction zone under Vancouver is very curved and ill-defined, not at all like Japan or Guatemala.  Thus, I always have my doubts that we'll see a big one rip, perhaps a bunch of smaller M8s?

The ocean crust here is younger and quite strong, as seen by the large number of aftershocks in the crust from that last one.  Thus I have no doubt that a stress field could reach the site of this earthquake.  Anyway, this size is small beans to the region, and probably means nothing.

LInux - Nvidia Nouveau driver now as good as blob

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After years of suffering greatly, the open Nouveau driver is now as good on my machine as the old Nvidia blob driver.  The main reason that nv earned the legendary finger from the Big Guy, is that they are real bitchy about opening their specs and such.  They have had this horrible binary for years, which kills you every time you put in a new kernel.  Now with the latest Debian Sid, and 3.6.6, I can finally play my Foobillard smoothly.  (Geforce GT 520).

Of course, they claim to have upped their game with another binary.  Look for years for an open driver to catch up with their latest products.

M7.4 earthquake Guatemala

I am absolutely fascinated by what is happening on that upper border of the Caribbean Plate.  This earthquake looks far out, and probably didn't do much.  In that area, triggered landslides are the big threat.  They've had lots of earthquakes to knock down weak housing.  The clean topography shows that M9's regularly rip through the area.

I have no idea on the mechanism that pushes the Caribbean Plate.  Would an M9 in this region provide that push?  It is very weird.

Montreal earthquake - Post-Italy Seismology

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So, the general question is that they've been hit by two teeny earthquakes in a row, so should they be concerned?  They went to a gov't seismoologist and got an answer.  I haven't listened to it, since that would restrain my wild imagination.  :)

What not to say post-Italy -  There is no concern whatsoever!  Continue to dance on your crumbling bridges, sleep in brick houses on swamps.

Now, we all know if they say that, there is going to be a big earthquake tomorrow where lots of people get killed.

The Proper Answer -   There is always a concern for a large earthquake under most cities.  The chance is somewhat remote, and these small earthquakes don't change it a bit.  The ability to 'take a hit' depends on the general seismic capacity of the city, which can be improved by long-term planning.

The most likely answer, post-Harperization:   I can't say anything.

Bell live chat

It's a most horrible curse in Canada, that sometimes you have to interact with the local phone monopoly. Everything in Canada is a monopoly!  (or cartel, if you want to get fussy).

So, I wanted my cottage phone suspended for the winter, and I was prepared for my usual hour-long wait on the phone.  But wait!  There was this 'live chat' thing.  So I did it.  I was connected quite quickly, but they must be using an MS system with dial-up.  Sooo  Slow!  The wait times were so long that I finally disconnected when I got the order confirmation number.  Can't they say good-bye?

Highly not recommended.  At least when you phone you get a nice person from the Philippines.

Virginia Earthquake - High PGV for more

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I used to digest BSSA articles, but I can't afford it any more.  :(   Anyway, the triggering of landslides is 100% correlated with PGV (peak ground velocity), since that is directly related to induced shear strain.  In a happy world, this would put an end to PGA, blah.

Had this earthquake happened under Montreal, Boston, or New York, we wouldn't have even looked at Sandy.  Luckily it was in the middle of nowhere, and we don't have to learn a thing, as Homer would say.  As to whether it was unusual in the historic sense, I doubt it.  It was just in a place where you could get a lot of rock falls.  In other places, the 'power' or PGV is measured by looking at liquefaction.  For an M6 you would get rock falls, for an M7 you would get soft soil deformation.  New Madrid and Charleston are in that class.

Update:  Now they are finally getting the idea there is soil amplification.

Montreal gets hammered by tiny earthquakes

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I'm glad these earthquakes don't bother the Maffie concrete.  I mean, who could tell?  One more chunk falls, big deal.  :)

So, this is a brand new M3.7 (4.2 with HST).  As we know, Montreal is just one city in the East, living with the 1in500 earthquake hanging over its head.  If a Virginia M6 happened here, I think we would hear most about Leda Clay landslides.  A lot of Montreal is on hard rock or clay, but the infrastructure is terrible.  Thus I rate its seismic capacity as very low.  An earthquake during winter would be too terrible to contemplate.

Computers triumph over geology

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Field geology is dead!  Who needs to look for evidence of this flood water?  It can all be done by computer.

Unfortunately, I possess in my memory the results of a summer geophysical survey in the North Channel of Lake Huron.  There lies an infinite volume of granitic pea gravel, and massive erosion of solid granite.  Such is life....

Linux kernel install screws up

So, la, la, I installed a new Linux kernel the Debian way.  Everything wonderful until I rebooted.

Quel Horreur!  I get the horrible 'grub rescue' prompt.  Believe me, after several hours, there is no way out of this hell.

Then, lucky me, my other Linux computers helped me make a Debian rescue live dvd (my computer refused to take a rescue usb).  I used the 'rescue text', and just followed the results to reinstall grub.  Now it works perfectly.

Small earthquake gives a kick to New York

A small M2 at the bottom of the great failed rift.  Looks like there has been some activity there recently.  The earthquake gremlins just want to let people know they can do some damage too!

New hot water tank scam - Ontario Consumers

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Came to my door today.  Seemed offended when I slammed the door in their face.

Earthquake Response - The Danger of Localism

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Why are we going to be so screwed if there is a major earthquake?  It's because of Total Localism, which is my term for handling everything within the actual earthquake zone.

In the dictionary, localism is political, and it is politics that drives earthquake response.  Everybody wants this cushy job in the neighbourhood.  I know, because I did it for 30 years.  It's like being an 'earthquake fireman', only working when there is an earthquake.  Sure, I put all my effort into trying to mitigate the effects, but that was truly 'pissing into the wind', since nobody listened.  I had a few small successes, to keep me sane.  :)

The sad news is that every time we have an earthquake under Ottawa, the GSC is buzzed out of their mind.  They have centralized everything and are overwhelmed.  The same goes for the BC wing.

Our local emergency response team in Toronto is not in a good location for earthquake, and will be wiped out (in effectiveness), should we have our 1 in 500 earthquake.  BC is the same.  We will all have to rely on the US for information!

Really, we live in a modern world.  Information response teams, such as seismic assessment should be outside the immediate zone.  A small start would be to have the BC team do the East, and the Ottawa team do the West.  Why not?