6.6 mg Earthquake 3/21/2012 NEW GUINEA, PAPUA NEW GUINEA

 
 

• This event has been reviewed by a seismologist.

Magnitude	6.6
Date-Time	Wednesday, March 21, 2012 at 22:15:05 UTC Thursday, March 22, 2012 at 08:15:05 AM at epicenter Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones
Location	6.244°S, 145.959°E
Depth	105.9 km (65.8 miles)
Region	NEW GUINEA, PAPUA NEW GUINEA
Distances	66 km (41 miles) ESE of Goroka, New Guinea, PNG 114 km (70 miles) S of Madang, New Guinea, PNG 382 km (237 miles) NNW of PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea 2469 km (1534 miles) NNW of BRISBANE, Queensland, Australia
Location Uncertainty	horizontal +/- 13.6 km (8.5 miles); depth +/- 5.9 km (3.7 miles)
Parameters	NST=138, Nph=141, Dmin=489.8 km, Rmss=1.12 sec, Gp= 18°, M-type=centroid moment magnitude (Mw), Version=5
Source	Magnitude: NOAA West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center, Palmer, Alaska, USA Location: USGS NEIC (WDCS-D)

6.2 Earthquake PAPUA, INDONESIA

 
 

• 
  
  • This event has been reviewed by a seismologist.

  Magnitude	6.2
  Date-Time	Tuesday, March 20, 2012 at 17:56:19 UTC Wednesday, March 21, 2012 at 02:56:19 AM at epicenter Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones
  Location	3.830°S, 140.220°E
  Depth	66.9 km (41.6 miles)
  Region	PAPUA, INDONESIA
  Distances	153 km (95 miles) SSW of Jayapura, Papua, Indonesia 173 km (107 miles) SW of Vanimo, New Guinea, PNG 1407 km (874 miles) NE of DARWIN, Northern Territory, Australia 3711 km (2305 miles) E of JAKARTA, Java, Indonesia
  Location Uncertainty	horizontal +/- 14 km (8.7 miles); depth +/- 8.8 km (5.5 miles)
  Parameters	NST=180, Nph=180, Dmin=818.2 km, Rmss=0.92 sec, Gp= 22°, M-type=body wave magnitude (Mb), Version=6
  Source	Magnitude: USGS NEIC (WDCS-D) Location: USGS NEIC (WDCS-D)

7.4 Earthquake Oaxaca, Mexico

 

• This event has been reviewed by a seismologist.

Magnitude	7.4
Date-Time	Tuesday, March 20, 2012 at 18:02:48 UTC Tuesday, March 20, 2012 at 12:02:48 PM at epicenter Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones
Location	16.662°N, 98.188°W
Depth	20 km (12.4 miles)
Region	OAXACA, MEXICO
Distances	136 km (84 miles) SSW of Huajuapan de Leon, Oaxaca, Mexico 162 km (100 miles) WSW of Oaxaca, Oaxaca, Mexico 170 km (105 miles) SE of Chilpancingo, Guerrero, Mexico 322 km (200 miles) SSE of MEXICO CITY, D.F., Mexico
Location Uncertainty	horizontal +/- 15.8 km (9.8 miles); depth +/- 6.5 km (4.0 miles)
Parameters	NST=438, Nph=440, Dmin=312.8 km, Rmss=0.88 sec, Gp= 79°, M-type=teleseismic moment magnitude (Mw), Version=9
Source	Magnitude: USGS NEIC (WDCS-D) Location: USGS NEIC (WDCS-D)

 

Mexico City (CNN) -- A strong earthquake rattled residents in southern Mexican resort towns and the nation's capital Tuesday, but there were no immediate reports of serious damage or injuries.

The U.S. Geological Survey reported the quake had a magnitude of 7.4.

The epicenter was about 15 miles (25 kilometers) east of Ometepec, Guerrero, the USGS said, and its depth was about 12.4 miles (20 km).

More than an hour after the quake, residents of town were feeling aftershocks, said Francisca Villalva Davila, the city's comptroller.

The USGS initially reported the magnitude of the quake at 7.9, but later revised that figure downward. Mexican President Felipe Calderon said in a Twitter post it was 7.8.

Residents rushed into the streets after feeling the temblor in Mexico City, about 200 miles (320 km) away from the epicenter. Tourists and residents also felt the earthquake in the resort city of Acapulco.

Calderon said that there were no immediate reports of serious damage, and that the nation's health system was operating normally.

"There are some broken windows, much fear, much panic," he said.

Residents in the southwestern states of Oaxaca and Guerrero and the eastern state of Veracruz reported that phone service had been knocked out.

Multiple houses collapsed in the Ometepec area, but officials have no reports of deaths or injuries, Guerrero state Gov. Angel Aguirre told CNN affiliate Televisa.

Government helicopters were surveying the area, he said, and officials were preparing shelters for displaced residents, he said.

Authorities in Mexico City were surveying buildings, schools and hospitals to evaluate damage, Mayor Marcelo Ebrard said.

A pedestrian bridge fell on a minibus during the quake, he said, but there were no injuries.

Some buildings had cracks and broken windows, he said in a Twitter post.

Earthquakes are a frightening experience for the more than 20 million residents of Mexico City, where about 10,000 people perished in a massive quake in 1985.

The city, built on volcanic ash and clay, is particularly vulnerable to temblors.

Santorini: The ground is moving again in paradise

 

http://www.gatech.edu/ 

Do a Google image search for "Greece." Before you find pictures of the Parthenon or Acropolis, you'll see several beautiful photos of Santorini, the picturesque island in the Aegean Sea. The British Broadcasting Company named it the world's best island in 2011. Santorini is a tourist magnet, famous for its breathtaking, cliff side views and sunsets. It's also a volcanic island that has been relatively calm since its last eruption in 1950. Until now. The Santorini caldera is awake again and rapidly deforming at levels never seen before. Georgia Tech Associate Professor Andrew Newman has studied Santorini since setting up more than 20 GPS stations on the island in 2006. 

 

"After decades of little activity, a series of earthquakes and deformation began within the Santorini caldera in January of 2011," said Newman, whose research is published byGeophysical Research Letters. "Since then, our instruments on the northern part of the island have moved laterally between five and nine centimeters. The volcano's magma chamber is filling, and we are keeping a close eye on its activity." 


Newman, a geophysicist in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, cannot be certain whether an eruption is imminent since observations of such activity on these types of volcanoes are limited. In fact, similar calderas around the globe have shown comparable activity without erupting. However, Newman says the chamber has expanded by 14 million cubic meters since last January. That means enough magma has been pumped into the chamber to fill a sphere three football fields across. 

 

Should Santorini erupt, Newman says it will likely be comparable to what the island has seen in the last 450 years.

"That could be dangerous," notes Newman. "If the caldera erupts underwater, it could cause local tsunamis and affect boat traffic, including cruise ships, in the caldera. Earthquakes could damage homes and produce landslides along the cliffs."

More than 50,000 tourists a day flock to Santorini in the summer months (from May to October). It's common to see as many as five cruise ships floating above the volcano.

Santorini is the site of one of the largest volcanic events in human history. The Minoan eruption, which occurred around 1650 B.C., buried the major port city of Akrotiri with more than 20 meters of ash and created Santorini's famous, present-day cliffs. Newman says such history will likely not repeat itself any time soon. Such an eruption comes along once every 100,000 years, and the current inflation in the magma chamber is less than 1 percent of the Minoan blast.

Clip from the IMAX film "Greece, Secrets of the past".
The eruption at Santorini (Greece) is considered to be one of the largest in history, and certainly the most massive volcanic explosion in the last 10,000 years 

Bezymianny volcano erupts again

Friday saw a new eruption of the Bezymianny volcano on the Kamchatka Peninsula in the Russian Far East.

Earlier in the day, the volcano spewed ash up to 8 kilometers high, seismologists said, adding that the eruption does not pose a threat to population centers in the area.

One of the most active volcanoes in the world, Bezymianny is located 350 kilometers northeast of the city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.

During its most powerful eruption in 1956, the 2,800-meter volcano ejected about three cubic kilometers of volcanic debris in a very short time.