Snow business

Face smashing in the snow, just like the Croods!  My son and girlfriend. :)

Oklahoma isolated earthquakes mean nothing - M3.1

I think I got the flu or something, so I'm not in a great mood.  As we can see, the isolated stress-quakes are getting bigger.  On the surface, this would confirm that they have nothing to do with injection.

So here comes the curse:  

We are in total agreement with OK:

“It's rare for swarms to produce a large earthquake, but it's hard to say anything is for certain,” said Austin Holland, of the Oklahoma Geological Survey.

Therefore, this totally natural swarm will soon die out, and never produce a large earthquake in the next week or two.

Done.

Update:  An M4.1 even closer also means nothing.  :)

ps.  Note to injectors - for some strange reason your channels should be opening up now.  You should double your rates.

Update2:  The M4.1 has a new fault-plane solution, which aligns perfectly with the M4.5 and shows the large extent of the shear wing.  Totally random!

Oklahoma should get Real-Time GPS

They could pick up these units with a Boxing Day sale.  Seriously, the big quakes are due in a month, and it might be the only time to get a GPS signal for eastern earthquakes.  As we know, they put these units all over New Madrid and got nothing.  That parrot is dead!

My Christmas wish is for a big array of GPS all over Oklahoma.  Then it would show what the local 'stress-quakes' are showing.  We would expect a slow rise in the city (on the thrust), and relative motion on the shear wings.  I am patient, and I'm sure we'll get the gps eventually, but it'll be too late.

Update:  another isolated stress-quake.  Things are heating up!

Update2:  M3.1 isolated earthquake.

Toronto booms may be frost quakes

Article

Even more mysterious is that some people reported hearing booms at other times during the day as well, ranging from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. to 1 a.m. on Christmas morning.

That's what the news is reporting, but I think it was too widely felt for that.  Even the news people can't wake the seismic people!  There were way too many booms, and frost quakes are always single events.

The source of one frost quake was discovered in the northern US, and was a surface buckle of rock.  That makes sense, it is what we call a pop-up.  We all must try to wake up the seismic people, and especially the infra-sound people to get a full list of the events.

Update:  Article   Apparently, these ice quakes have hit in a great group before.  Ice quakes would be locatable with the seismic network, if there were somebody to look at them.  Perhaps we should all raise money on Kickstarter?

Bunch of Oklahoma earthquakes over Christmas

This is not as newsworthy as freezing in the dark, or as interesting as a mystery boom, but one went as high as M3.7

There was one very isolated earthquake which may be stress-related or most likely an injection point.

Loud booms heard over Toronto

I heard 3 booms, and thought something was wrong with the house.  But my son in another house miles away heard the same booms.  No news about them.

Update:  This was heard all over Southern Ontario, yet not a speck of news.  Is everybody off for Christmas?

Update2:  My only hope is for the seismometers and infrasound detector, but I can't raise anybody.  Best guess is that Santa was running a little bit late.  :)

Update3:  I'm so frustrated in finding out anything.  You know, this will be the same for any emergency, including the current ice storm, and future earthquakes.  :(

Update4:  The news media is guessing frost quakes.  Fat chance!

Alaska M3.9 earthquake focus point of Grinch-zilla attack

There it is, the exact point where The Fish has predicted an M7.5 for Christmas.  Grinch-zilla will attack Santa there, using the energy of the great earthquake which he will trigger by injecting a million barrels of stolen waste water.  Will Santa and the Angel-Airforce win?  All the kids must be extra good tonight!

Toronto, Prepare for your Earthquake!

We all know trouble comes in threes.  Giant Flood, Giant Ice Storm, and we know what comes next - Giant Earthquake!

We are getting prepared by the ice storm, since we expect the power to be out for a week with an earthquake.  Gas will be out, too.  This sucks if it is winter.

We should at least prepare for an M5, which will a certainty when they start injecting the pumped salt water from the Bruce Black Hole, into the Hamilton Fault.  After all, these people don't believe in the Precambrian!

A winter M5 should not evacuate all the downtown buildings into a non-functioning subway.  There should be earthquake overrides to the fire alarms.  Can you imagine every one in the streets, especially if the M5 is a foreshock?  Everyone is safer in the big buildings.

An M6 will knock out the power, but not the gas (maybe).

An M7 will knock out both for a week.  The nuclear plants will be difficult to restart.

Anyway, have a Merry Christmas!

ps.  Have discovered that the Fords couldn't declare an emergency, because that would be the final nail in the coffin.  As usual, the emergency people are totally unprepared for this, because of their famous quote:  "We are (equally) prepared for anything.", which means they are prepared for nothing.  A while ago, when I was using some 'company' power to investigate this, I found their attitude was "We're Toronto, nothing will happen to us."  "

Unusual earthquake in the Bermuda Triangle

This is in the young oceanic crust -M5.2.  Can't possibly be an earthquake, so we all know what that means.

Look at that!  It's a thrust!  THE GRINCH-ZILLA RISES!

It is to be an epic battle for Christmas!  All you kids can help by saying "I believe in Santa", and ringing a bell so the angel airforce can scramble.  :)

*Toronto Ice*

The photospheres need to be viewed in Google+

NW twin earthquakes in Azle

Looks like Azle isn't as mature as Oklahoma in terms of the 'New Madrid Growth Process'.  But the good news is the new seismometers are pinpointing the NW flow pipe.  Somewhere along that line is the monster injection well.  I don't think this system is capable of the M4.5's and up.  If we see a NE trend, then it is good to go.  :)

After OK hits the M5's they may have the will to put some money into this.  Normally, they would just stop the injection, but they are running out of room.  It reminds me of when they banned smoking in the cubicles, then everybody would crowd into the lounges.  They became a smoke hazard, then they all went to a special vented room.  Soon, no fan could keep up, and they all crowded outside by the door.  Nobody could get into the building without smoke damage, so they pushed them farther away.  This the same with injection.  Soon they will go somewhere else with bigger and bigger wells into the Precambrian resulting in bigger earthquakes.

There is nowhere safe to inject those exponentially increasing volumes.  If they go to propane, it will be many times more expensive, and there goes the whole ball of wax.

Blackberry Officially Dead

Article

Everybody should share their BB stories.  I remember that I was in the old company, suddenly in charge of something for a while, and I got real busy.  I whined for a BB, which was the ultimate status symbol, only for VP's and up.  I loved it!  My wife also got a bb.

Then the bad times came.  The new bb's were all total junk.  They never worked, and you always had to take out the battery to reset them.  The wife got a Note 2.

Now, bb is going to form a company around bbm, which is a decades old messaging service, probably written in Fortran.  The big companies will still buy it, but everybody and their dog make something better.

Ice Fun

We in Toronto have been through a heck of an icestorm.  Only half an inch, but there hasn't been such a storm in history (according to Fords).  Lots of old trees have bought the farm.

I'm happy with power and Internet but we are in an island of juice, just a km south of us and everything is out.  My son had fun with this video.

We must always be happy with what hits us.  :)

Oklahoma and Texas back to earthquake ping-pong - M3.3 Azle

I don't care!  This is hilarious!  It's an exact match right after the Ok 3.3.  The only physics that can explain it is 'Earthquake Quantum Entanglement'.  They'll probably have their M5's together.

Oklahoma earthquake M3.3

Just to keep me happy, OK is still spitting out some feeble earthquakes out in the ultra-boonies.  This are the marvellous stress signals I've been talking about.  It means some big movement is going on in the city, and there are these isolated sparks.  It's the same in a mine, if you glue a glass marker across a fault.  It explodes when there is movement, just like the trees are exploding all around me with our ice storm.  :(

LInux - Finding the truth about SteamOS

I looked into this a lot, since my son seems to be under a massive delusion.  I got some components working on a the small Zotac.  The addition of Steamos to Debian does absolutely nothing in terms of play or graphics components.  Sorry, son, but you can't play PC games here.

Right now stos is a dream, a dream about a time when all games will have a native Linux port.  That is not this time, but 2 years away.  So, forget about your Total Rome, or whatever.

When that happy time comes, then Stos will be there, serving out games, and charging incredible amounts of money.  No more inferior free Linux games which is all I play.  They won't be Open Source which anybody can steal.  These games will be Linux binaries, designed specifically for the hardware of the stos-box.  I wish them luck.  In the meantime, I will play my Foobillard.  :)

LInux - transferring files with Android

You would not think this is so tough.  Anyway I am going to a mountain cabin where I think it might be difficult to use Google Drive to deal with pictures.  Simple me thought I could use my Linux laptop to accumulate pictures from the Nexus 4.  It takes good enough pictures for me.

So, there are countless methods to do this, and they all don't work!  I know, I tried them all.  Finally I got the recipe:

Get the binary of go-mtpfs.  Put your user in the fuse group.  Make a directory for the mount.  Just execute the binary (having made it executable - Ha!)  with the mount point.  Yeah, you can see all the phones files!

Oklahoma earthquake activity drops like a stone

This is good for Christmas, but boring for me.  :)  But it is what I predicted, based on Arkansas.  The other half of the prediction should come in the new year, but I won't tell you what it is.  :)  Merry Christmas!  Right now I'm wondering if we will really get that huge ice storm.  I am relying on the Toronto Heat Shield, which usually raises the temperature to rain.  Yeah for warming!

Web seminar on Canadian earthquake risk

Reference

Blah, hate that bastardized word they are using.  These are the people who presented those horrible earthquake scenarios that were met with a big yawn.  They will try again with a boring seminar.

Why are these things always so terrible?  Because everybody has to protect their rear ends.  I didn't protect mine when I had a colonoscopy today.  :)

Nobody in OPG wants to go into management

Article

Even a long time ago, you'd have to be crazy to make the jump from senior engineer to management.  Only the most weasley would go for the slight increase in pay.  Now there is a decrease!  I remember one guy's health went down the toilet when he jumped because they make you do the most horrible stuff, and no job protection.

Ms. Mulligan said OPG, which produces 60 per cent of the province’s electricity, was having difficulty persuading Society members to move into management and take on more responsibility for less pay.



Ya think?

Smallest earthquake yet for Azle, Texas

This is just an M2.1 but it shows that the new instrumentation is in place and reporting.  We might be able to start trusting the locations.  A few more events and I'm predicting we'll start seeing a much tighter NW line, which is the 'rock artery' carrying the fluids.  Unless, of course, this is the actual intersection, but I doubt it.

Oklahoma M3.2 earthquake - Back At You!

Now that we're into the 4's for OK, I would never report a mere 3.2, but this one is in the old zone.  I'm pretty sure they stopped injecting here, but I wouldn't put it past them to start up again.  If they haven't started, then this is just a left-over.

M4.2 earthquake Kansas

"We're not in (the old) Kansas any more."  Do you think earthquakes in Kansas?  No, just tornadoes.

I can't help but think this location is way out.  I am sure there are no seismometers in Kansas, and all the OK ones are probably near the city.  If we had first-grade coverage, that whole smear would be tighter, and close to injection wells.  I was hoping the 4's didn't start up until after Christmas.  In this zone, we are getting 20 M3's for an M4 which is somewhat more normal than the wacked-out ratio of OK City.

Earthquake Deflation:  M3.8

Minor Texas earthquakes extend the zone

The interior is quiet, which is a wonderful temporary relief for the residents.  I hope the new instruments are reducing the location error, because then we can start seeing some structure.  The fluid continues to flow, and I don't think it is possible for a zone to stop under those circumstances.  To give everybody a break, I won't predict anything.  :)

Oklahoma and Texas get some tiny quakes

Under 3, not worth reporting, but there is a neat news article.

Article

This has a 'minute video', which might be the way those 'Minute Earth' people are finally making money.  As usual, they have it all wrong, but this is the NY times we're talking about.  :)

These injection wells are all 25,000 barrels a day monsters straight into the faults.  Natural infiltration controlled New Madrid, Tennessee, and Toronto.  The wells are probably 2 orders of magnitude greater.  I say it needs a 7 to get them to stop.  :)  

A break from Oklahoma and Texas earthquakes

We should not be getting an M3 every day from now on.  Most of the minor bumps have now been sheared off.  I must admit I was amazed at how many of the these little things the fault zones could produce.  Normally, we have something like 10 M3's for an M4, and so on.

The faults are smoother now.  We should just get the big ones every few weeks or so.  With each earthquake more fluid channels open up, which puts lots of money into pockets for Christmas.  :)  I am looking forward to a break until the New Year.

M3.5 earthquake in the Badlands

Just south of Rapid City.  The location doesn't transfer any more to Google Maps.  Pooey!  Doesn't matter, I just did this because it is such a great tourist spot.  Did the trip a thousand years ago when I took the sister's car from LA to Chicago.  The Wind Caves, or Whistling Cave is fantastic for a geophysicist.  It is such a huge volume that only exits at a small spot, so it was discovered by the steam whistle effect when the barometer changed.  They are still exploring it.

Everybody attacking OPG staff

Article

I have written before that OPG is a totally self-similar organization, or fractal.  That's just like earthquakes!  That means it looks the same on any scale.  Thus, we have political toadies at the top, bending to their political masters, and it is the same political organization throughout, down to the section.

Can this be fixed? Probably not.  This is the end state of any monopoly, and is the reason the trust-busters got started in the early 1900's.  The dead hand of the monopoly;  it can destroy any country, just like a dead aristocracy.

Don't pick on the poor schmuck at the bottom.  If you are a technical person, your salary range is totally compressed, so they can try to get new people.  You will earn the same forever, unless you are a good political operative.  All the senior people only think of their pension.

By talking to the really old guys, I found that Ontario Hydro went in cycles.  The current cycle is "Our staff is useless", which agrees with the article.  With this mood, everything was sent to consultants.  Never contract to people who are smarter than you!

Thus, we had the Niagara Tunnel run by 3 guys who were political operatives.  Not good!  The Darlington Early Fix-Up will be the same.

M3.1 earthquake Eastern Tennesee

This is the most unproductive seismic zone of all time, right beside the Chattanooga Choo-Choo.  This seismic belt just produces tiddly squat, and never anything bigger.  This earthquake is quite big for the area.  So, nothing to see here.  They will never get a big earthquake.  :)

Addendum:  Plus, good ol' Azle, Texas got an M2.7, the furthest yet in the SE direction.  It's almost as if there were an expanding plume....

Adjustment:  Down to an M3.0 now.

Second Adjustment:  Sinking to an M2.8

Linux -do the ringtones for Android

Well, normally I never answer my cellphone, it's always Virgin wanting me to go to a kiddie concert.  Recently, I had a need to answer the phone, and the ringtones are all ugly.

So, you get a nice song - buy it, yeah.  And you fire up Audacity.  No need to read any instructions, just fumble along like I did.  Eventually, you stumble on how to do a selection, then copy it and paste it into a new project.  Maybe do it again, like I did.

You can export this to an mp3 file, and put it on one of your Samba shared folders.  Then on Android, use ES File Explorer, and copy that file down to Ringtones.  Select it on settings.  That's all!

Wind Turbines Sound their own Infrasonic Death Knell

Article

Yeah, one of the stupidest ideas of the Libs is dying an undignified death.  Next is solar.

Nobody looks at the basic physics in advance.  The Niagara Tunnel is in with this bunch.  Much better to waste 3 times the money on Nuclear, at least you end up with something.  I'm not so happy with gas plants since they are riding on cheap deep waste disposal, and you know what happens with that.

OPG in Auditor's Cross-hairs

Article

For some reason, I've had experience with this place, and I have never seen anything so good at letting billions slip through the fingers.  But, what the hey, it's good for the economy.

I can't see that Mr. Auditor will come up with anything new, unless he somehow gets into the Niagara Tunnel.  But at merely 3 billion wasted, I don't even think it comes up on his radar.  :)

But it was a good company once, and I strive to remember the fun times, when the nightmares strike.  :)

Update:  Looks like they just want to go after my cushy pension... blah that must be 2% of the waste.

Confirmed:  Yeah, they were just after the salaries.  Trouble is, 5% of the people are worth 10 times the rest of the cruft.  That goes for execs, programmers, engineers, etc.  Once, OPG tried to dip into that 5% with Gregory Smith, and was roasted for it.  The rest aren't even worth low, miserable salaries.

Texas earthquake - M3.7 - Mineral Wells takes up the ball

Since everyone around there is just interested in football, we find that Azle has thrown a lateral westwards.  Who knows about this area?

ps.  this is the biggest one yet, but I can't say it is part of a mechanism way out there.  If we had tighter location control at Azle, then I believe we would see a standard NW thrust and NE shear.  Thus I expect the M4.5 in the next couple of weeks.

Texas earthquakes not to be forgotten - M3.6

I think this is the biggest of their sequence.  I'm sure they'll surpass OK soon.  The big problem for me is that their locations are all over the map.  The USGS is supposed to improve that soon.  Texas also has a completely different ratio of magnitudes.  Whereas OK had many small earthquakes before the next size, Azle is going up like a rocket.  That indicates a smoother fault.

ps - another aftershock for OK

pps - I wonder who will win the Big Prize - largest earthquake before they stop injecting...

Oklahoma aftershocks align perfectly down the fault

Well, we got 2 aftershocks.  You don't expect too much for an M4.5.  I'll guess 2 more right down the line.

It always requires a thrust to activate the shear, but in this case the many small earthquakes on the thrust produced enough strain to release the shear.  Then the big shear quake has liberated enough rock to make a large thrust earthquake inevitable.

All the regional injection sites are celebrating their Christmas bonus, since this is a large enough quake to knock down the pressures and increase the volumes.  This is the fundamental mechanism for all the large earthquake zones in the East.  It is how New Madrid grew.

Like the Monty Python Black Knight, OK shouts 'Fight On!'.  I admire their spunk!  Unlike those weenies in Arkansas and Ohio, this will prove the operative mechanism.  We should get up to an M6 before they stop injection, and the residual could push us to M7.  Then all the trucks will move to Texas and we can do it again!

Is that all you got?

Oklahoma M4.5 earthquake is strike-slip (shear) first

Oh well, I am human after all.  I was so certain that a big thrust would occur first, and then a smaller strike-slip three days later, a la Arkansas.  Looks like the smaller shear quake came first.  You can also see this in the first aftershock.

Straight down the shear fault to the city.  Perhaps we are in for a much bigger thrust, or that thrust may be skipped altogether.  We could jump right to second phase.  In a week or two, expect an M5 thrust.  The thrusts are interesting in that they produce a 'hammer strike' right above them.  This shear quake produces less PGV, but if they do a shake-map, you'll see an alignment to the NE.  That is common for eastern earthquakes, and it means the propagation also went in that direction.  Don't forget that the fault length for an M4.5 is probably less than 100 m.

Hallelujah it has come! Oklahoma M4.5 earthquake right on the money

I was beginning to lose faith in my God-like powers, so that's why I invoked the "It'll never happen" curse.  Perhaps that was over the top.

So the M4.5 (exactly!) happened exactly on the NW thrust fault.  I hope they can get a focal mechanism.  Now, within 3 days we will get an M4 right downtown, along the shear wing.  OK is now much more interesting than Texas, but they'll get there.

The cheap seismic plan for Toronto

Vancouver has it's expensive plan, but we in Toronto have no honour, and have spent all our money on crack parties.  Although it would be good to recover honour with a real seismic plan, I don't see much interest in it, so we should steal everything.  Our stolen plan will go great on the late night circuit, and we'll be all ready to be ridiculed for the Pan Am games.

First theft will the geology map for Toronto, with absolutely no credit. *

Using a 10 cm/s as a hard rock base, we merely have to assign amplification factors to each of these layers.

There, we have our PGV map!  At no cost!




*http://www.geologyontario.mndm.gov.on.ca/ but you have to use their search engine on 'quaternary toronto'.

Oklahoma earthquake M3.0 - somewhat isolated

Like some of the others, this seems far away from most of the action, and the deep geologic structure as I have guessed it.  Unlike Texas, I have good faith in the location.  To me, it just shows how close is the general stress field to be triggered.  I can't imagine the geology required to have an infinite number of M3's without an M4, but I am now going to tempt Fate by issuing a statement of absolute certainty:

We will have M3's forever in Oklahoma and Texas, and never anything bigger.  Therefore, there is no cause for concern.*




* I must point out that my wife says I am always wrong when I say something like this, such as "No way it's going to rain!"

Vancouver seismic plan related to Toronto

Reference

So, the big mistake at the beginning turned me off, but my good buddy Wayne encouraged me to look at it again.  I found some good stuff.

Now I know this plan, written by unpaid interns, probably cost the city a million bucks, but Toronto can just steal it.  The real cost is in doing all the pre-earthquake work in the plan.

At the same odds of 1 in 500 per year, Toronto has a different scenario.  That would be an M7 right under the west end of the lake, along the Hamilton fault.  Technically, that is probably an M6.5, but I find that scenario planning is only to 1 significant digit.  That was silly that Van picked 7.3.  Give me a break!  Really, you plan for 7, 8, or 9.  Ignore 5 and 6, unless you are a hopeless basket case, like Christchurch.

Toronto's 7 would have exactly the same effects as the Van 7.  There would be high PGV's on the soft-soil areas, and lots of liquefaction in High Park, etc.  Natural gas and electricity would be out, along with some big bridges which would have to be inspected.  Subway out, too.

Now, even if we were weenies, and only planned for an M6, there are some cheap things to do.  Seismic instruments speed up the inspection of important buildings, and bridges.  An M6 still leads to an extended power outage, but that should be planned for anyway.  It's the combined effect of both gas and power that is the killer, since many emergency power systems may depend on gas.

I just hope the Van plan shames Toronto into doing something.

New Vancouver seismic plan

Reference

For those interested.  I can't read further because of the really bad English at the beginning.  Who writes these things?  Unpaid interns from China?

Learnings???    They have plotted liquefaction zones, but I wanted to see if they had a foundation velocity map, which is essential, or n-counts.  Probably not, and now I'll never know.

Bruce black hole keeps simmering in the media

Article

“We’ve done study after study…the geology is spectacular,” says Kraemer. “It’s in proximity to the lake, but not really part of its system…Any water that is at that level has been there for 500 million years since the Great Lakes basin formed.”


For the sake of my mental health, I don't say much on this.  The proof will be in the pudding of the excavation.  :)

Oklahoma and Texas back to back M2.7 earthquakes

I've never seen anything so twinned.

They are on different megathrusts, so we don't have any physical connection.  It's more like the identical mechanisms are working.  OK is again in that middle area, away from most action.  Since there are now two earthquakes there, I am suspecting a new injection well.  After all, it is right on the 'bonanza' megathrust.

As for Texas, it is 'downstream' on a NW transform fault, out from the megathrust.  I expect that the plume will get more into the structure near Dallas.

All of this could be solved if they would just put some money into reprocessing the tons of vibroseis data in the region.

Oklahoma Monday earthquakes

Being a Canadian, I always brood about future disappointment - (Yes, it is sunny today, but tomorrow it'll rain.)

Now, I'm always worried that the only two injection earthquake places in the world will actually stop pumping into active faults.  So, when we have a lull, I think - "This is it, boys."  Today, my hope goes on for a while longer.

Only an M2.5 and 2.9, but they are in the right place, and lining up nicely on the NW.  I have confidence that these are good locations, since OK has been putting in more seismometers.

Now it is time for Texas to respond.  :)

Update:  Yeah, Texas came back with an M2.7!

M5.1 Mexico subduction zone

This is a nothing earthquake for the region, but I love it!  It is my prime candidate for the next M9, since I don't think they've had one in history.  Could be wrong, but that M8 doesn't count.  This is the cleanest, smoothest zone that hasn't had a clearing earthquake.

Lest you panic, there are lots of these zones, and we only get one every 10 years or so.

Earthquakes far from injection sites

Just a quick note about yesterday's M2.9 far away from the main zone.  These are probably reacting to stress changes.  If it were possible to do fault plane solutions for such tiny quakes, we would probably see shear, due to the NW strain relief of the main zone.  I still think they may have stopped injection.  Unlike Texas which lumps this in with railroads, there are technical people in OK.