Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Big Earthquake overdue in Southern California

iTwitch said:
I read about this earlier on Drudge and Steve Qualye of the Q-Files just finished talking about it. Articles like this fuel all the doom and gloomers.
Click to expand...

Earthquakes happen all the time here. Its just another person saying that California is going to break off into the Pacific...and hey I slept through the Northridge earthquake, it was kinda like Magic Fingers.
 
Electro Funk said:
If i lived in LA (after reading that article) i would be walking around everyday with a hard hat and a lifejacket on! :p
Click to expand...

Lifejacket? :confused: It's not a flood. Los Angeles won't be swallowed up into the sea if there were an earthquake...
 
Macaddicttt said:
Lifejacket? :confused: It's not a flood. Los Angeles won't be swallowed up into the sea if there were an earthquake...
Click to expand...

ehrm.... i was joking.... lot of people say that cali is going to break off and sink some day.... :rolleyes:

not saying i agree with that... guess im not that funny.... :(

Edit: maybe i would start a new fashion statement.... dont be surprised if the next time you come to florida we are all wearing life jackets and hard hats :p
 
So, there will be another Island next to Catalina. People in Central Orange County might not mind so much. It might clean up the streets of L.A.

I'm just surprised that I didn't experience at least a 2.0 while I was there recently. I would have ordered jell-o, just to watch it wiggle.

I wonder if someone else was watching that Dolph Lundgren film that I passed on t.v. this weekend. It seems rather coincidental.
 
Ehhh, it happens, no sense worrying about it. I grew up in California and have had my fair share of big earthquakes. Things fall over and break and they're repaired or replaced and people move on. It's startling and it's no fun but it's not worth the panic. LA is resilient. (god I miss it)
 
iBlue said:
Ehhh, it happens, no sense worrying about it. I grew up in California and have had my fair share of big earthquakes. Things fall over and break and they're repaired or replaced and people move on. It's startling and it's no fun but it's not worth the panic. LA is resilient. (god I miss it)
Click to expand...

Shake and bake is better than soak and freeze, isn't it?
 
Ok, dumb question, but do earthquakes really look like they do in movies? Like does the whole big crack in the earth thing actually ever happen of is that just for dramatic effect? Does it feel like the ground is shaking randomly or more moving backwards and forwards. I only ask because we don't really experience them here. :eek:
 
It really depends...earthquakes sometimes feel like a single sharp jolt, while other ones are more of an extended rolling. In some cases, you can tell where the wave is coming from.

What you see in the movies is greatly exaggerated. In California we have strike-slip faults (where two plates are sliding by each other) rather than subduction faults (where one plate is diving below another one as they have off the coast of Indonesia). In extreme earthquakes (like the 1906 San Francisco earthquake) you can see earth movements of multiple feet...roads that all of sudden don't line up, etc. Those phenomena are pretty isolated and are really just right along the fault. You can have some ground collapsing due to the movement, and so you can get buckling pavement that looks a lot like the chasms opening up like you see in movies. But it's on a much smaller scale and more localized than the movies portray them. And this stuff only happens in major earthquakes. Smaller ones, even ones that cause significant damage, leave virtually no visible changes to the ground.
 
max_altitude said:
Ok, dumb question, but do earthquakes really look like they do in movies? Like does the whole big crack in the earth thing actually ever happen of is that just for dramatic effect? Does it feel like the ground is shaking randomly or more moving backwards and forwards. I only ask because we don't really experience them here. :eek:
Click to expand...

depends on how big it is. mostly the minor ones feel like you're off balance; it's just disorienting. the large ones are rather frightening. it's loud, everything moves [duh] randomly, and things fall and you have no idea when it will stop or get better/worse. it sucks actually. (been through too damn many)
the crack in the earth thing is silly, those are usually ariel shots, which is funny because there's no sensation of earth movement up there. mostly you're in your house and everything starts jerking around... the perspective is just different. <shrugs>

some earthquakes are more violent than others. one might feel llike a rocking motion, the other like a paint shaker. no real rhyme or reason to it that i can telll you.
edit: good description WildCowboy. there are those random jolts too. plate tectonics is strange.
if that answers your question.
 
I've lived with earthquakes all my life. I'm just going to enjoy the ride.

Earthquakes are mostly harmless. It's the stuff that falls on you that kills. Here in Kali the homes and most newer buildings are generally safe. It's the old buildings that I'd be worried about when it hits. Retrofitting them to standard costs too much and rebuilding them costs even more.
 
Chip NoVaMac said:
Actually I think it it over due for the Mid-West and the New Madrid fault.

The last time it "went", church bells in Boston, MA rang....
Click to expand...

There was a 4.9 earthquake near here 3 years ago; the epicenter was in DeKalb County, AL (northeast corner of the state, about 2 1/2 hours or so from me). It surprisingly woke me up.

If the New Madrid fault really goes again, I wonder how many of the buildings in this area of the country are built to withstand a major or semi-major quake.
 
WildCowboy said:
In California we have strike-slip faults (where two plates are sliding by each other) rather than subduction faults (where one plate is diving below another one as they have off the coast of Indonesia).
Click to expand...

Not to be too picky, but for those interested not all faults in California are transform faults (stike-slip) but most are. The Cascadia subduction zone extends south to Cape Mendocino. There have been earthquakes at Cape Mendocino and Eureka from this fault zone in the recent past. This zone produces the volcanos of Northern California (Lassen and Shasta).
 
erickkoch said:
I've lived with earthquakes all my life. I'm just going to enjoy the ride.

Earthquakes are mostly harmless. It's the stuff that falls on you that kills. Here in Kali the homes and most newer buildings are generally safe. It's the old buildings that I'd be worried about when it hits. Retrofitting them to standard costs too much and rebuilding them costs even more.
Click to expand...

That's a rather broad statement. The Northridge earthquake destroyed some relatively new buildings, which were designed to much more current seismic standards. This resulted in a lot of study about how modern buildings perform in earthquakes, which is another subject about which we know less than you might expect. Also, extensive retrofitting of older buildings has occurred throughout California since Northridge, backed up by state funding. So older buildings aren't as much of a risk, and newer ones probably not as safe, as you think

As for this new study, it doesn't seem to tell us anything we didn't already know. The mother-of-all-earthquakes is coming to a fault near you...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back