Just read about another earthquake in region, this one in Japan registering somewhere between 7.4 on the low end and 8.8 on the high end, the reports conflict. Regardless, that’s a lot of movement. When the ground shifts, a variance of 1.2 is nickel and dime.
This brings me to this whole plate tectonics thing. I am reading a book, Atlantic, by Simon Winchester, the guy that wrote Krakatoa, and as I was dozing off between paragraphs last night something jumped out and whacked me upside the head.
The theory of plate tectonics was not really known until the mid-60s. As in the 1960s. Not the 1860s or 1760s but the 1960s. That’s not that long ago. I assumed it has been around a while, discovered by someone like Michelangelo or Darwin or even Einstein.
Apparently the theory came into being on the heals of the theory of “continental drift” when they started mapping the ocean floor and discovered that the entire floor is moving not just the land above the waterline. Makes sense when you think about it. How self-centered we were to think that only our known world was moving – the parts we could actually see. It never occurred to people that everything was somehow connected and all of it was moving – turns out there are really big mountain ranges that we can’t see that are really, really active (think Ring of Fire in the Pacific). Phew, now there’s a lesson, as I said it whacks you upside the head.
This brings me to all the quake activity. We are rocking and rolling in this neck of the woods and every time we get news of another one my mind races back to Santa Monica in January 1994 at 4:31am. I know what it’s like to be in a 6.7. It’s not fun.
When I see numbers like today’s 7.4-8.8 or the 7.1 last September or even a 6.3 less than 5K beneath the surface just a few weeks ago I shudder to think what it is like on the ground. These folks are getting rattled. Send out your thoughts and positive energy, they need all they can get..
SiteLock
