An 8.7 earthquake that struck west of Indonesia in April was the biggest of its kind ever recorded and confirms suspicions that a giant tectonic plate is breaking up.
The quake, caused by an unprecedented quadruple-fault rupture, gave Earth's crustal mosaic such a shock that it unleashed quakes around the world nearly a week later, according to a study in the journal Nature.
"We've never seen an earthquake like this," says Keith Koper, a geophysicist at the University of Utah.
Taking a scalpel to what happened that day, the seismologists believe there was a near-simultaneous rupturing of at least four faults, stacked up and lying at right angles to one another.
They ripped open one by one, all within 160 seconds, in a process known by the French term "en echelon."
Even more remarkable, though, was where the event took place.
It occurred nowhere near a boundary between the plates which like a jigsaw puzzle comprise Earth's crust.
Instead, it occurred in the heart of the Indo-Australian plate, tearing a gash up to 40 metres wide and confirming long-held suspicions that the plate is fragmenting.
Another study in Nature found that quakes occurred around the world for at least six days afterwards.
They included a 7.0 quake in Baja California, Mexico, and in Indonesia and Japan.
Mercifully, the big shakes occurred in rural areas, not in urban areas where the outcome "could potentially have been disastrous," says Roland Burgmann of the University of California at Berkeley.
"Until now, we seismologists have always said, 'Don't worry about distant earthquakes triggering local quakes.' This study now says that, while it is very rare - it may only happen ever few decades - it is a real possibility if the right kind of earthquake happens."
What would it mean for the world if that happened? Could that be major world cataclysm?
Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike.
-Alexander Hamilton
Enki wrote:What would it mean for the world if that happened? Could that be major world cataclysm?
"World" is a personal subjective term.
It would be a major world cataclysm if you're in the wrong place at the wrong time when a tree falls in the forest.
"Civilization-Ending" might be what you're looking for here. Time will tell. It could just be the earth making more oil.
the main plates splitting up was only theoretical before so noone really knows what happens when a new plate forms, its an undocumented phenomena for modern science.
I would doubt it would be civilization ending unless the indonesian super volcano got tweeked and went off again - that would mean several years of world wide darkness and crops failing, causing mass chaos and starvation
the interesting part was how these earthquakes are going to break the typical rule of quakes being isolated and unrelated, so when it does crack further it will trigger boundary quakes all over the show.
downside is that the triggered quakes happening in highly populated areas, upside is we might end up with new islands.
What I was more thinking of was like earthquakes that make Sydney fall down or Tsunamis that wash away half of Indonesia.
Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike.
-Alexander Hamilton
according to the article it even triggered quakes in america (baja california, mexico) so it wont be just regional, it all depends on where pressure points are waiting for a nudge to kick em off and these will constantly change as things move.
huge disasters will obviously happen in a populated place eventually, its just a dice roll.
its just had a big shift so they suggest (guess?) it will be "a few decades" before its built up enough pressure again.
noddy wrote:according to the article it even triggered quakes in america (baja california, mexico) so it wont be just regional, it all depends on where pressure points are waiting for a nudge to kick em off and these will constantly change as things move.
huge disasters will obviously happen in a populated place eventually, its just a dice roll.
its just had a big shift so they suggest (guess?) it will be "a few decades" before its built up enough pressure again.
One day we'll all live in cities that float in the ocean and can be submerged during major storms because the land will be too unstable to inhabit.
Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike.
-Alexander Hamilton
noddy wrote:according to the article it even triggered quakes in america (baja california, mexico) so it wont be just regional, it all depends on where pressure points are waiting for a nudge to kick em off and these will constantly change as things move.
huge disasters will obviously happen in a populated place eventually, its just a dice roll.
its just had a big shift so they suggest (guess?) it will be "a few decades" before its built up enough pressure again.
One day we'll all live in cities that float in the ocean and can be submerged during major storms because the land will be too unstable to inhabit.
That's what happens when you sell off all the gravity.
