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Have you ever felt a quake & thought that felt MUCH bigger than the magnitude reported? Our new research explains why.
Big magnitude quakes produce big shaking. Small quakes shake a little. But every so often, a small magnitude quake will cause surprisingly strong shaking.
Big magnitude quakes produce big shaking. Small quakes shake a little. But every so often, a small magnitude quake will cause surprisingly strong shaking.
Big magnitude quakes are rare. Small quakes are common.
If you feel strong shaking, is it a rare big quake doing what big quakes do or an oddball little quake?
We found that, if you feel strong shaking, it’s way more likely to be a little magnitude earthquake... with ambition.
If you feel strong shaking, is it a rare big quake doing what big quakes do or an oddball little quake?
We found that, if you feel strong shaking, it’s way more likely to be a little magnitude earthquake... with ambition.
Think of big earthquakes as sharks, and little quakes as cows. Sharks are scary, but you almost never come nose-to-snout with a shark. Cows aren’t scary, but they’re really common. Sharks kill 5 people every year. Cows kill 22. Yet few of us fear the moo.
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analogy. A M8 always causes strong shaking while only 4% of M6 quakes shake strongly. BUT for every M8 there are 100 M6s! While we’re waiting for that 1 M8 to happen, we’ll meet 100 M6quakes incl. 4 weird M6s that cause strong shaking (
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/ analogy. A M8 always causes strong shaking while only 4% of M6 quakes shake strongly. BUT for every M8 there are 100 M6s! While we’re waiting for that 1 M8 to happen, we’ll meet 100 M6quakes incl. 4 weird M6s that cause strong shaking ()
Someday there will be a Big One on the San Andreas that will cause strong shaking in LA. But, while we’ve been waiting for the Big One, the 1933 M6.4 Long Beach, 1971 M6.6 San Fernando, 1987 M5.9 Whittier Narrows, and 1994 M6.7 Northridge quakes happened which all caused damage.
If little quakes are the main culprit of strong shaking, does this mean that there is more hazard than we thought? NOPE. The USGS National Seismic Hazard Map and building codes are based on the total possible shaking from all quakes from all magnitudes.
So do we need to stop talking about a Big One? No, the Big One will shake a much larger region, so we still need to plan for regional scale disruptions. And big earthquakes (as well as fires, storms, and many other disasters) can knock out services for extended periods.
Remember: We can prepare for and survive earthquakes. Infrastructure can be made resilient. But we should talk about the #MediumOnes as well as the #BigOnes.
Link to full article: http://ow.ly/vxJX50CfGSs (Paywall. Sorry.)
Feel free to ask questions here! Scientists are standing by. 
