Ireland must have done quite a bit of shifting around, given that the western half came from the US geology and the eastern half from 'europe'. Things don't seem to have moved here much though for the last millenium or two.

Other people have to live with a lot more instability. I was in Chile last year and along the coast the roads and footpaths were all cracked up from movement, and there were plenty of hot springs and volcanoes.

We were sleeping one night in a little wooden shack on the side of a cliff by the sea, when I was woken by a very loud bang and a quite a big jump as the shack ditched its moorings and went skywards followed by 20 seconds powerful lateral shaking. I had been watching Chilean tv of villages swallowed up the night before and experienced pure animal terror like never before or since, with a strong urge to throw husband and children over shoulder and run for the hills.

The apparent stability of the planet in Ireland is a bit of an illusion, isn't it really.

Perhaps not coincidentally, this is the first verse of today's poem:

Corinna A-Maying the Apocalypse
It was a geologic instant.
Fine-bone plates moved under the Pawtuxet
& up sprang West Warwick. In an instant
the houses were up & the shutters open.
Then the paint was peeling all over town.
Then the instant passed with a shudder
& all the houses fell down.

The lilacs die. The lilies of the valley. April & May blow up & away.

cactus flower wrote:

Ireland must have done quite a bit of shifting around, given that the western half came from the US geology and the eastern half from 'europe'. Things don't seem to have moved here much though for the last millenium or two.

Other people have to live with a lot more instability. I was in Chile last year and along the coast the roads and footpaths were all cracked up from movement, and there were plenty of hot springs and volcanoes.

We were sleeping one night in a little wooden shack on the side of a cliff by the sea, when I was woken by a very loud bang and a quite a big jump as the shack ditched its moorings and went skywards followed by 20 seconds powerful lateral shaking. I had been watching Chilean tv of villages swallowed up the night before and experienced pure animal terror like never before or since, with a strong urge to throw husband and children over shoulder and run for the hills.

The apparent stability of the planet in Ireland is a bit of an illusion, isn't it really.

Yeah - like everything in Ireland - you do get lulled into a false sense of security

I've experienced 3 earthquakes full on (ie over 4 on the Richter scale) and more than a few tremors which you get used to in Earthquake zones.

1st one was here in Ireland in the late 80's when there was a quake measuring 5.3 on the scale which occured out in the Irish sea at about 6 in the morning which resulted in pictures and stuff falling off the walls and doors slamming in our house in Co Carlow.

2nd one - San Fran in Nov 89 - a biggie - I was taking time out of Uni and living in CA at the time and I was working in San fran - and on Fishermans wharf at the time! - I had finished work early and for some bizarre reason decided to take the ferry home to Alameda on the othee side of the bay - in that 20 minutes - the Bay bridge (which I would normally have been on at that time - its was a late afternoon-early morning quake) partially collapsed and Marino district went up in flames and the motorway collapsed in Oakland and I never felt a thing out on the boat!

3rd - Greece June 95 - I had just finished up working as an English Teacher in Xilocastro , a small town on the gulf of Corinth - finished cleaning up the apt and went over to the bar accross the square to have a few whiskies , talk the talk and chat with the Serbian hookers - I got home about 3 am and came in and lay down on the bed - I knew I was a bit pissed - but suddenly there was an awful shuddering and it wasnt a truck passing outside - everything started to shake and I became aware that the wardrode was suddenly coming a lot closer to me - Feck - dived out of the bed before the Wardrobe crashed into it ,remembered my California training - go and stay within the Arch of the nearest door - it was the longest 30 second of my life - I remember looking out the window at the apartment blocks around me swaying like flowers in the wind - looking at the fags on the table in the kitchen - will I - will I not - feck it is scary when you literally can feel the earth move - and then total silence and I ran on the street with everybody else - loads of tiles and shit on the ground - but we were lucky - the epicenter was 80 miles up the coast and 3 villages near Patras were the worst affected and a hotel had collapsed killing 60 German and dutch tourists - we stayed up all night and the afteshocks came and went - dont remember much as the Bar owner gave out drinks on the house for the next 24 hours!

somebody wrote a book recently on the premise that the dynamic state of san franciso led to the people being more entrepreneurial out there, a bit more aware the pace of life. like in china earthquake zones and floodzones elsewhere.

cactus flower wrote:

The apparent stability of the planet in Ireland is a bit of an illusion, isn't it really.

Well, I know Intel likes to base a lot of its operations here because of the geological stability in Ireland. There's no local tremors to affect their micro-production lines.

we could corner the market in jenga then too.

But no sky scrapers.

lostexpectation wrote:

we could corner the market in jenga then too.

And resucitate the building trade by cornering the global card-houses construction market!

Ard-Taoiseach wrote:

lostexpectation wrote:

we could corner the market in jenga then too.

And resucitate the building trade by cornering the global card-houses construction market!

Well they would be better quality than some of the ones build in the last few years. Yes Zoe Developments, I'm looking at you!

cookiemonster wrote:

Ard-Taoiseach wrote:

lostexpectation wrote:

we could corner the market in jenga then too.

And resucitate the building trade by cornering the global card-houses construction market!

Well they would be better quality than some of the ones build in the last few years. Yes Zoe Developments, I'm looking at you!

Yeah, they'd be match-box houses. We could do with an earthquake to clear them.

http://blog.dohop.com/?p=92

This helpful blog on how to cope with an earthquake was just posted by someone in Iceland, where they have just had a big one.

The world seems to be particularly active at the moment - China and now Iceland are on the move. Is there any connection ? I'm just off to look for a tectonic plate map.



http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Quakes/us2008sqba.php

cactus flower wrote:

http://blog.dohop.com/?p=92

This helpful blog on how to cope with an earthquake was just posted by someone in Iceland, where they have just had a big one.

The world seems to be particularly active at the moment - China and now Iceland are on the move. Is there any connection ? I'm just off to look for a tectonic plate map.



http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Quakes/us2008sqba.php

Yup - if you think about it, earthquakes are the result of stresses being released in the Earth's crust. Every time a biggish earthquake releases stress somewhere, that's going to change the stresses elsewhere, overloading other faults - the whole thing shifts and settles together.

http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/dynamic/historical.html

Some tectonic plate maps

cactus flower wrote:

The apparent stability of the planet in Ireland is a bit of an illusion, isn't it really.

Yes, considering there are a few extinct volcanos about the country or at least rock formations that were caused by volcanic activity. Giant's causeway, an island in Dublin Bay (IIRC) and some hill in Limerick.

Another earthquake - this time in the Caucusus. Is it my imagination or has this been a particularly active year?

11/10/2008 - 14:55:16
A strong earthquake hit Russia’s North Caucasus today, an uncommon occurrence for the region, officials said. At least four people were killed.

The quake hit around 1pm (10am Irish time) and was centred north-east of the Chechen capital, Grozny, Russian emergency officials said. The US Geological Survey said the quake had a preliminary magnitude of 5.9.

The quake, which was felt throughout the North Caucasus and rattled Grozny for more than 30 seconds, killed at least four people, said Oleg Grekov, a regional Emergency Situations Ministry official. He did not know the exact circumstances of their deaths.

Several dozen people sought medical help in the Chechen town of Gudermes, the Interfax news agency said.

Russia’s Caucasus Mountain region sees occasional earthquakes. Most buildings are not reinforced against severe structural shocks and even small quakes can cause serious damage.

Earthquakes in Papua New Guinea (over 7.5) and in Kabul today
03/01/2009 - 21:25:07
A strong earthquake has hit north-eastern Afghanistan, a quake that rattled the capital Kabul for about a minute, according to officials.

The US Geological Survey says today’s quake had a preliminary magnitude of 5.9 and was located in the north-eastern province of Badakhshan in the Hindu Kush mountains. The area is often hit by earthquakes, but is sparsely populated.

A Badakhshan police official, Fazel Ahmad Naderi, says the quake was strong but noted that his cell phone still worked, meaning that towers had not been toppled. The quake hit about 12.50am local time and Naderi says he will not know about damage until daylight.

The quake rattled buildings in Kabul, about 160 miles (260km) south-west of the epicentre.

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Quakes/quakes_all.php

Auditor or EVM, is there room on the portal for this interesting website?

cactus flower wrote:

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Quakes/quakes_all.php

Auditor or EVM, is there room on the portal for this interesting website?

There certainly is and what a find! Maps and all. For now I'm going to lodge it in the "Machine Nation" panel, bottom right.

Apparently, Yellowstone has been quaking too. This ISN'T good.

Earthquakes do happen in clusters; one plate moving puts pressure on those surrounding.

Watched a few inneresting documentaries on the last maternity leave; apparently Europe was much more active in the dark and early Middle Ages; tsunamis on Lake Lucerne, etc. They predicted a quake on a fault going through London, which duly happened about a year later.

Ireland seems unusually stable... I guess we're well north of the plate boundaries in the Med (the nearest subduction zone) and well East of the mid Atlantic rift. Iceland is right on that; they reckon a big eruption there like they had in the 17-18th centuries could shut down transatlantic flights for a long time...

expat girl wrote:

Apparently, Yellowstone has been quaking too. This ISN'T good.

Earthquakes do happen in clusters; one plate moving puts pressure on those surrounding.

Watched a few inneresting documentaries on the last maternity leave; apparently Europe was much more active in the dark and early Middle Ages; tsunamis on Lake Lucerne, etc. They predicted a quake on a fault going through London, which duly happened about a year later.

Ireland seems unusually stable... I guess we're well north of the plate boundaries in the Med (the nearest subduction zone) and well East of the mid Atlantic rift. Iceland is right on that; they reckon a big eruption there like they had in the 17-18th centuries could shut down transatlantic flights for a long time...

We may see a fissure appear in Kildare Street sometime in 2009.

Indeed we might Slim Buddha, but not if Yellowstone went first.

I was looking for something on Costa Rica: sadly some people have died there

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Maps/10/275_10.gif

Anybody feel this quake earlier on?

SeathrúnCeitinn wrote:

Anybody feel this quake earlier on?

Are they inmates !!! Very refreshing. A good reason I couldn't survive in that prison anyway.

I suppose ye've all seen the "Evolution of Dance" viewed 109 million times
6 mins