[Geology] Earthquakes in Christchurch, New Zealand

up for anything

My heart goes out to everybody there that this would happen again so soon and I hope anyone here that has relatives out there will get news that they are safe and well.

http://www.bestsyndication.com/?q=20110221_earthquake_new_zealand_christchurch_today_6_3_magnitude_and_aftershocks_deaths_damage.htm6.3 earthquakes - Christchurch/New Zealand

Sky News Report

Near Christchurch, New Zealand in the South Island of the country, there was two major earthquakes that shook, one was a 6.3 magnitude and was followed by a 5.6 magnitude a few minutes later.

The first earthquake was the 6.3 magnitude tremor that was located at 43.600°S, 172.710°E at a depth of 3.1 miles said the US Geological Survey. The event happened at February 22, 2011 at 12:51:43 PM local time at the epicenter. It was near Christchurch, New Zealand. The quake was reported to have lasted around one minute.

The second earthquake happened a few minutes later at 01:04:18 PM local time at the epicenter which was located at 43.580°S, 172.798°E at a depth of 4.2 miles. This was nearby and probably would be considered an aftershock tremor.

There was reports of damage and deaths that have occurred in the area caused by the earthquakes. According to local Sydney Morning Herald news report, police in the area said there were multiple deaths. The center of the Christchurch has been evacuated by the authorities because fires that may have broke out. In addition, the Cathedral Square church was reported to have been destroyed and possibly people may be trapped inside the building. Phone lines were out and so was power in areas.

According to the New Zealand Herald news report there was water flooding the streets because the water mains have burst.

BY: N Wilson

Hundreds Feared Trapped As NZ Quake Kills 65


Richard Williams, Sky News Online
A powerful earthquake in the southern New Zealand city of Christchurch has killed at least 65 people, while 200 others are feared trapped in damaged buildings.

The country's prime minister, John Key, revealed the death toll during a statement on the plight of the city of 350,000 people - and warned it may rise.
He told TV1 News: "It is a just a scene of utter devastation. This may be New Zealand's darkest day."
Google has set up a website to help distribute information about missing victims.
Buildings have collapsed and vehicles are buried beneath debris, with rescue workers scrambling to help those trapped under rubble left by the 6.3 magnitude quake.
The fire service said the proximity of the quake to the city's centre meant it had caused more damage than the 7.1 magnitude tremor in Christchurch last September.

Vehicles were crushed when a car park collapsed
"The shake has been a lot worse, maybe not in intensity but as far as damage is concerned, and there are numerous people trapped," a spokesman said.
A police statement said: "Reports include multiple building collapses, fires in buildings in the central (city) and persons reported trapped in buildings."
Those killed are thought to include the occupants of two buses that were crushed by falling debris.
Pavements and roads were cracked and split, and hundreds of dazed, screaming and crying residents wandered through the streets as sirens blared throughout the city.
Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker said he was on the top floor of the city council building when the quake hit just before 1pm local time, throwing him across the room.
When the shaking had stopped I looked out of the window, which gives a great view onto Christchurch, and there was just dust.
Christchurch city councilman Barry Corbett
"There will be deaths, there will be a lot of injuries, there will be a lot of heart break in this city," he said.
"I got down onto the street and there were scenes of great confusion, a lot of very upset people."
Helicopters dumped giant buckets of water in attempts to douse a fire in one tall office building, while a crane helped rescue workers trapped in another office block.
The airport was closed and Christchurch Hospital was evacuated. Power and telephone lines were knocked out, and pipes burst, flooding the streets with water.
The multi-storey Pyne Gould Guinness Building, housing more than 200 workers, was among those that collapsed and at least 30 people are said to be trapped inside.
Television pictures showed rescuers, many of them office workers, dragging severely injured people from the rubble.
The US Geological Survey said the centre of the quake was three miles from the city at a relatively shallow depth of 2.5 miles.

Power and telephone lines were knocked out by the tremors
A 5.6-magnitude aftershock hit shortly after seven miles east of the city at a depth of 3.7 miles.
City councilman Barry Corbett said: "When the shaking had stopped I looked out of the window, which gives a great view onto Christchurch, and there was just dust.
"It was evident straight away that a lot of buildings had gone."
Christchurch has been hit by hundreds of aftershocks since the previous earthquake struck in September.
That quake caused no deaths, but the city was still repairing the extensive damage.
:: British nationals concerned about relatives or friends affected by the quake can contact 020 7008 1500.

gbee

Believe it or not: Last night I was perusing this site: http://quakes.globalincidentmap.com/
when a big red dot appeared. Soon followed by another red dot in the same place.

Shock as I saw the first of the story break and the early reports of damage.

weisses

What kind of weather caused this earthquake

mike65

Quite, for some reason Tsunamis and Earthquakes end up in weather.

snowstreams

weisses wrote: »

What kind of weather caused this earthquake

I dont know if weather can directly cause earthquakes but there is a correlation with volcanos erupting in winter months.
The theory is that lower air pressure during winter time tends to cause the magma chambers to expand more, and hence more likely to erupt.

BEASTERLY

Should this not be in geography forum:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=1332

Maybe we should make a winter FI charts thread there until things are resolved.

gbee

BEASTERLY wrote: »

Should this not be in geography forum:

Not IMO. Geology maybe. As it stands weather, as geology can effect weather, is not such a bad place for it.

The Icelandic volcano has set a precedent.

up for anything

We've had this why do earthquakes and volcanoes end up in the Weather forum query a few times before. Weather has given earthquakes and volcanoes an unofficial home for the time being or at least let it (land)slide. Most people who are interested in weather events are also interested in earth events, some of which can have an affect on the weather and some don't. We don't make a new thread for every little eruption or EQ event so take up very little space in the grand scheme of things.

chiefbrody1974

my identical twin brother txt me this morning to say he got out his job just in time. whist the ground was shaking he dove underneath a granite worktop and waited for the ceiling to stop falling. when he went out onto the main street he said "it's as if I was in the war of the worlds movie set". unfathomable!!!! he's living in Christchurch 5 years now, im just back from visiting him at xmas, spent a month over there, during our SNOWY Xmas period!!!
that side of the world is major volitile now id say, between Oz floods an storms, tsunamis in the pacific and NZ earthquakes. Mass social unrest in the middle east, one economic disaster after another in europe and on it goes, its a bad time to be a human at the moment. Maybe these mayan lads were onto something after all. the world seems like a can of coke thats just been shaken HARD!!! ready to blow...

Im not superstitious realy but it does give some pause for thought. Im just glad my twins ok realy, and we think POT holes are a manace!!! if anything, stuff like this brings perspective!!

desolate sun

This is terrible. Sympathy goes out to the victims and hope some more people can be rescued.

In places like this that are on the plates, is there a warning system in operation. Or is it difficult to predict these things?

up for anything

Desolate Sun, this explains why earthquakes are impossible to predict.

From Earthquake Blog

BORIS BEHNCKE on February 22, 2011, 6:07 AM
@Les Francis and everybody else here – I do agree with the USGS statement that earthquake prediction is virtually impossible.

Why is that?

Firstly, because the places where earthquakes are generated are deep below the Earth’s surface – often many kilometers to tens of kilometers deep, places that we cannot access and therefore we have no means to know exactly what are the physical conditions down there. We don’t know where, at that depth, the faults are exactly located. Often we don’t even see the faults at the surface, so until they rupture and produce earthquakes, we don’t know they’re there at all.

In order to be able to predict earthquakes, we would have to know exactly that a fault is there, and we would have to know its exact geometry, and what the rocks are like on both sides of the fault along its entire length and depth. We would have to know at what rate the fault is slipping normally, and when it got stuck in what location. Finally, we would need to know what temperatures there are in that spot, and whether the rocks are dry or contain water. All these variables are necessary but nearly all will forever remain virtually unknown.

That’s why predicting earthquakes will remain close to impossible for, I fear, a very long time.

DOCARCH

up for anything wrote: »

Most people who are interested in weather events are also interested in earth events.

Agreed. Earth sciences.

dsmythy

DOCARCH wrote: »

Agreed. Earth sciences.

Forum merge coming up is it

gbee

The combined total of other science forums is:
169,052 at time of post. The Weather forum alone has:
172.303 posts, more than all other 20 forums put together ....

Yawn, back seat mods at it again ... Like was said before, if you have problem refer it to mods, dont be taking on the job yourself. I asssume the mods ARE here for that reason.


Thanks for the info upforanything:) I saw something about it last night just before I went to bed, but didnt see it on the sieso I was looking at, so I said shag it, off to bed. Then I was heading to town to day and read the paper.


I just read there a while ago, it broke off 30 million tons of ice from a glacier


The earthquake that struck Christchurch has caused some 30 million tons of ice to break off from New Zealand's biggest glacier. Tour guides at the Tasman Glacier in the Southern Alps say the quake caused the ice to "calve" from the glacier, forming icebergs in the terminal lake. Tourists of Glacier Explorer boats say the icefall caused waves of up to 3.5 meters in height which swept up and down the lake for 30 minutes. The glacier is about 120 miles (200 kilometers) from Christchurch on the west coast.

thetonynator

Jake1 wrote: »

Yawn, back seat mods at it again ... Like was said before, if you have problem refer it to mods, dont be taking on the job yourself. I asssume the mods ARE here for that reason.

Is saying that not back seat modding in itself?!

Of the total posts in the weather forum however, how many thousands are AH-style threads whenever there is a storm or snow??? The actual weather forum posts would be considerably less i'd say . . .

thetonynator

thetonynator wrote: »

Is saying that not back seat modding in itself?!

Of the total posts in the weather forum however, how many thousands are AH-style threads whenever there is a storm or snow??? The actual weather forum posts would be considerably less i'd say . . .

Point taken Tony I just get a pain in me proverbials with it. Its been going on for ages now:)
Maybe we should set up an earth sciences forum. I had a looksee over in Geography, Nothing about Quake there. Cant even find geology forum LOL

Antiquo

Wherever it should go it seems to reside here for now.

anyway have family in Wellington and was of course onto them. All OK and one currently working in Christchurch (just outside city). The place and suburbs got hit pretty bad. Council has been getting hammered since last Sept quake as plenty of buidings not upto code.
Which is pretty shambolick considering the amount of quakes they get daily, granted many of them are 2-3magnitude.

Couple of local sites my cuz pointed me to this one gives you a good idea of just how active the area is.
Geonet site and this one was up here before but interesting to see the earthquake patterns around the whole Pacific rim culminating in the Christchurch quake from 15/2 to 23/2.

Antiquo

Antiquo wrote: »

Wherever it should go it seems to reside here for now.

anyway have family in Wellington and was of course onto them. All OK and one currently working in Christchurch (just outside city). The place and suburbs got hit pretty bad. Council has been getting hammered since last Sept quake as plenty of buidings not upto code.
Which is pretty shambolick considering the amount of quakes they get daily, granted many of them are 2-3magnitude.

Couple of local sites my cuz pointed me to this one gives you a good idea of just how active the area is.
Geonet site and this one was up here before but interesting to see the earthquake patterns around the whole Pacific rim culminating in the Christchurch quake from 15/2 to 23/2.

Glad your family are ok. What a relief for you.

Devastating what has happened to the new Zealand people.
Going to check out the links now. Thanks

tiger55

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUdN_evKRQs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZinL9KF-kbE

Two good pics on RSOE of the Glacier that broke away.

http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/woalert_read.php?edis=UEV-20110222-29670-NZL

up for anything

I came across a good explanation of why although the latest NZ quake was less powerful in Richter terms it was actually more powerful and did more damage. Not taken into account in this explanation though are duration and type of ground which can turn a lower scaled quake into a larger disaster.

This is turning into the darkest day here in New Zealand in terms of loss of life. To put some perspective on this, the Earthquake in September was just over magnitude 7 on the Richter scale, which is a logarithmic scale. Each increase of one is ten times the energy. Today’s quake was about 6.3, which at first does not seem comparable since it is about 7 times less in energy released. However, the quake was over three times closer to the populated area of Christchurch and seven times shallower. Using the ‘finger in the air method’ and the inverse square law (which is not totally accurate, as topographical considerations and density of bedrock are factors), the destructive power of this can be taken as the last quake divided by seven (seven times less energetic on the Richter scale) but then MULTIPLIED by 9 for being three times closer and 49 for being 7 times shallower which means this is very approximately 63 times the energetic impact on Christchurch which would make it roughly equivalent to an 8.7 quake which is MASSIVE in a populated area.

Early estimates on ground accelerations are coming in at 1 to 1.5 g (meaning the ground accelerated in various directions at between 1 and 1.5 times the acceleration due to gravity).’

weisses

tiger55 wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUdN_evKRQs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZinL9KF-kbE

Haiti was sunny

New Zealand cloudy with rain

Antiquo

up for anything wrote: »

I came across a good explanation of why although the latest NZ quake was less powerful in Richter terms it was actually more powerful and did more damage. Not taken into account in this explanation though are duration and type of ground which can turn a lower scaled quake into a larger disaster.

Yeh I initially heard 6.3m and saw the devastation but it didn't seem possible that the Sept 2010 7.1m had a less effect. Only when I looked at the depth and distance readings on the Chch quake map and compared the two it was pretty obvious what had happened even though less in magnitude was only 5km deep and literally just outside the city centre. Compared to the 7.1m last year at 11km deep and as stated further away.

Since last Sept they have been experiencing after shocks and tremors on a regular basis some fairly strong by NZ standards but this was right out of the blue.

@Jake1 that link's not working for me for some reason.

up for anything

More large quakes in New Zealand.

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/06/13/new.zealand.quakes/

Earthquakes rock Christchurch, New Zealand
By the CNN Wire Staff
June 13, 2011 -- Updated 0608 GMT (1408 HKT)


(CNN) -- A pair of earthquakes with magnitudes of at least 5.0 struck within 90 minutes of each near Christchurch, New Zealand, on Monday, the U.S. Geological Survey reported, reviving vivid memories of a deadly quake that killed more than 180 people in February.

"Everyone is on edge here anyway," said Rhys Taylor, who said he could hear sirens and see helicopters flying over Christchurch. "Obviously, power's out -- sort of all over the city at the moment -- and phone lines are down."
Police evacuated sections of the city's central business district after reports of a possible gas leak, police said. Several bridges in the city were closed as a precaution.

"It was quite an exciting ride," Christchurch Police Acting Inspector Murray Hurst told CNN after the first quake, adding that there was some damage caused by the quake and a few injuries that were not life-threatening.

The first quake -- a magnitude 5.2 -- was centered 9 kilometers (5 miles) east-southeast of Christchurch at a depth of 11 kilometers (6.8 miles), according to USGS. The quake took place at 1 p.m. Monday.

A second quake -- a more powerful 6.0 tremor -- struck at 2:20 p.m., roughly 13 kilometers (8 miles) north-northeast of the city at a depth of 9 kilometers (5.6 miles).

And at least one smaller quake followed. A magnitude 4.6 quake struck at 2:40 p.m. about 11 kilometers (6 miles) east of Christchurch and at a depth of 12.5 kilometers (7.8 miles), according to the USGS.

The quakes came nearly four months after a 6.3-magnitude temblor struck the same area, killing more than 180 people.

up for anything

New Zealand (Christchurch) hit by magnitude 6.0 shock

NotCarrotRidge

gbee wrote: »

Not IMO. Geology maybe. As it stands weather, as geology can effect weather, is not such a bad place for it.

The Icelandic volcano has set a precedent.

Well I know at least one geologist who's completely irritated with the idea that geological phenomena are a form of weather.

FYI, geology has a had a far bigger impact on our atmosphere than the other way around. Maybe the weather forum should be a sub-forum of a geology forum?

gbee

NotCarrotRidge wrote: »

YI, geology has a had a far bigger impact on our atmosphere than the other way around. Maybe the weather forum should be a sub-forum of a geology forum?

Cool with me bro. I think we all tend to interested in the same things anyway. It's a human failing IMO to have to have all things classified and pigeon holed ~ on the other hand, naturally, subjects can drift totally OT.

But I personally dislike forums in general for this very reason, they enforce and encourage tunnel vision.

Maybe we could have interlinked forums, sure one can sort of make one from the followed forums, ah never mind. As I start to think of it, where would be put a breaking NEWS story that involved an Earthquake, tSunami, Nuclear Fall out, Massive death toll, that was then ravaged by a heatwave, coldsnap and Typhoons?

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