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Strong earthquake hits northern Japan, tsunami warning issued

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Re: Strong earthquake hits northern Japan, tsunami warning issued

#121

Post by kulahan »

scottlamb wrote: post #118
kulahan wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why was the July megaquake, an 8.8 magnitude, a dumb prophecy, but this "strong quake" at a magnitude of 7.6 is a smart prophecy?

Strange question. The July megaquake prophecy scare was dumb because it originated in a work of fiction, not intended to be taken seriously by its author and not based on any scientific evidence. If the "prophecy" had come true, it'd be by luck alone. fwiw, I'd say it didn't come true; the 8.8 magnitude earthquake was near Kamchatka and didn't actually damage Japan, though a tsunami seemed plausible enough that there…

You are certainly reading something into my question that isn't there. I'm genuinely ignorant. I thought you were saying that predictions of a strong aftershock following an M8.8 were dumb, but the same thing following an M7.6 were smart. Is that not the case?

Again, sorry if this seemed antagonistic or something, I really am just unsure of what you were saying.

Re: Strong earthquake hits northern Japan, tsunami warning issued

#122

Post by bamboozled »

throwup238 wrote: post #18

This would be the tenth major earthquake (7+ magnitude) along the Pacific ring of fire this year. With the Kamchatka and other earthquakes in the news recently I had a fear that were building to some major event but turns out that this year is about average if not slightly below average for major quakes along the ring of fire.

The year isn’t over yet though … Jgov said there is a slightly higher chance of an 8+ in the next few days. Hope not.

Re: Strong earthquake hits northern Japan, tsunami warning issued

#123

Post by waldothedog »

macintux wrote: post #62
rpozarickij wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't know about hypocenter before too but it's neat how you can sometimes deduce the meaning of a word from its parts (because "hypo" means "under"/"below" in Greek, like in hypodermic, hypoglycaemia, etc).

The class wasn't as interesting as I'd hoped, in part because it seemed to attract older kids hoping for an easy grade, but in my high school we had an etymology class. (My school also offered Latin, but etymology seemed a much more direct/easier way to get the same basics. I just wish someone had taught me about demographics so I would have taken Spanish instead of German.)

But how much did they teach you about insects?

Re: Strong earthquake hits northern Japan, tsunami warning issued

#124

Post by fc417fc802 »

mturmon wrote: post #101
jacquesm wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.geo.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/en/new-study-connects-ear...

I think you intended this to be a validation of the idea that small quakes relieve stress and therefore lower the chance of a large quake. The above link does not answer that question. It is relating stress release to "fault strength", or the maximum shear stress that can be withstood by the fault. There is an incidental relationship with depth that plays a role. The video linked nearby (on criticality) also does not…

EQs are a release of energy. That energy is stored as stress prior to release. There is a finite amount of stored energy at any given time.

So the statement "EQs release stress" is true and it follows that adding the modifier "small" to the front doesn't change this.

It should also be immediately apparent that it would be very surprising if there were not statistical implications as a result of this. So surprising in fact that I would suggest that the burden of evidence should fall on those claiming that any such statistical effects are unexpected.

Re: Strong earthquake hits northern Japan, tsunami warning issued

#125

Post by refulgentis »

kulahan wrote: post #121
scottlamb wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strange question. The July megaquake prophecy scare was dumb because it originated in a work of fiction, not intended to be taken seriously by its author and not based on any scientific evidence. If the "prophecy" had come true, it'd be by luck alone. fwiw, I'd say it didn't come true; the 8.8 magnitude earthquake was near Kamchatka and didn't actually damage Japan, though a tsunami seemed plausible enough that there…

You are certainly reading something into my question that isn't there. I'm genuinely ignorant. I thought you were saying that predictions of a strong aftershock following an M8.8 were dumb, but the same thing following an M7.6 were smart. Is that not the case? Again, sorry if this seemed antagonistic or something, I really am just unsure of what you were saying.

You asked what I would have asked, in a sentence, my understanding is: it was LITERALLY a prophecy, I.e. an unscientific statement out of thin air, that in July, there would be an earthquake followed by a larger one. Here, we have reality, an earthquake, ergo the first prong of a mega quake was satisfied, as opposed to prophesied.

Re: Strong earthquake hits northern Japan, tsunami warning issued

#126

Post by [deleted] »

kulahan wrote: post #121
scottlamb wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strange question. The July megaquake prophecy scare was dumb because it originated in a work of fiction, not intended to be taken seriously by its author and not based on any scientific evidence. If the "prophecy" had come true, it'd be by luck alone. fwiw, I'd say it didn't come true; the 8.8 magnitude earthquake was near Kamchatka and didn't actually damage Japan, though a tsunami seemed plausible enough that there…

You are certainly reading something into my question that isn't there. I'm genuinely ignorant. I thought you were saying that predictions of a strong aftershock following an M8.8 were dumb, but the same thing following an M7.6 were smart. Is that not the case? Again, sorry if this seemed antagonistic or something, I really am just unsure of what you were saying.

[deleted]

Re: Strong earthquake hits northern Japan, tsunami warning issued

#127

Post by pezezin »

I live in Misawa (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misawa,_Aomori) and work in Rokkasho (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rokkasho), which is the area where the earthquake hit the strongest. It was quite violent, apparently the strongest earthquake ever recorded in the region. My house suffered no damage other than a few things falling off the cabinets, and I could sleep soundly afterwards, but lets see today at work.

Re: Strong earthquake hits northern Japan, tsunami warning issued

#128

Post by kulahan »

refulgentis wrote: post #125
kulahan wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are certainly reading something into my question that isn't there. I'm genuinely ignorant. I thought you were saying that predictions of a strong aftershock following an M8.8 were dumb, but the same thing following an M7.6 were smart. Is that not the case? Again, sorry if this seemed antagonistic or something, I really am just unsure of what you were saying.

You asked what I would have asked, in a sentence, my understanding is: it was LITERALLY a prophecy, I.e. an unscientific statement out of thin air, that in July, there would be an earthquake followed by a larger one. Here, we have reality, an earthquake, ergo the first prong of a mega quake was satisfied, as opposed to prophesied.

Ah, that's probably it. Thank you.

Re: Strong earthquake hits northern Japan, tsunami warning issued

#129

Post by hnuser123456 »

kulahan wrote: post #121
scottlamb wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strange question. The July megaquake prophecy scare was dumb because it originated in a work of fiction, not intended to be taken seriously by its author and not based on any scientific evidence. If the "prophecy" had come true, it'd be by luck alone. fwiw, I'd say it didn't come true; the 8.8 magnitude earthquake was near Kamchatka and didn't actually damage Japan, though a tsunami seemed plausible enough that there…

You are certainly reading something into my question that isn't there. I'm genuinely ignorant. I thought you were saying that predictions of a strong aftershock following an M8.8 were dumb, but the same thing following an M7.6 were smart. Is that not the case? Again, sorry if this seemed antagonistic or something, I really am just unsure of what you were saying.

A manga book published in 1999 randomly predicted a disaster in March 2011, which seemed to come true with Fukushima. The manga was re-published in 2021 predicting a M8.8 in July 2025, but nothing happened. This is the dumb prophecy part, it was not based on seismology studies, just a shot in the dark to try to seem prophetic again. Countless works of fiction are published every year which predict some future disaster at an arbitrary date. Every once in a while, one of those thousands of random predictions can be interpreted as coming true when something bad happens on that day, which retroactively drives interest in that work of fiction, and less scientific minds believing the author has actual future predicting power beyond the abilities of science.

A relatively major (but not M8.8) quake has now hit in December 2025. It is intelligent to expect there may be aftershocks in the days after a significant earthquake actually happens, which can sometimes be larger than the initial quake. This is a well-accepted scientific fact born out of large amounts of data and statistical patterns, not whimsical doomsdayism.

Fukushima's M9.0-9.1 was around a 1-in-1000-year scale event. The last time Japan saw such a powerful earthquake was in the 869 AD. It would be reasonable to expect one of that scale to not happen again for another 1000 years.

Re: Strong earthquake hits northern Japan, tsunami warning issued

#130

Post by jmward01 »

intunderflow wrote: post #29

Was in a hotel in Sapporo, almost got thrown out of bed. Lot of people in the hotel lobby now. Considering leaving Hokkaido by air if a Hokkaido and Sanriku Subsequent Earthquake Advisory is issued, don't really want to be in a potential megaquake.

I'm not a geologist, but this was pretty deep (44.1k) so not likely a foreshock right? Any actual geologists have a thought here? I know we have seen some indications that foreshocks can happen before megathrust earthquakes but it would need to be at the interface right? This looks like it is just the subducted slab deep down which in the 'intermediate zone' so not impacting the interface that 'slips' in a megathrust earthquake. (again, not a geologist) Now there have been, by that I mean just now, a 6.6 aftershock that was only 10km deep so that is potentially more concerning?
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