Geology, Earthquakes and Volcanos

latheboy

Trakanon Raider
752
945
48d 5h 7m
Yeah it was odd.
When I was little we lived in PNG and had some big earthquakes. It was nothing like that.
6.0 was a monthly thing for a while, which is what we just had here. Different feel to it
 

Lanx

Oye Ve
<Prior Amod>
52,795
112,628
It was about 30 seconds long, long enough for me to take my kids outside and have a look around. Even spoke to my neighbour.
1 thing that was strange is all the trees were dead still. Gum trees are renowned for dropping limbs or falling over and not even the leaves were moving.

My trees are pushing 40 metres tall.. 130' ish
oh god, you aussies have ugly ass trees
 
  • 1Worf
Reactions: MusicForFish

Gravel

Mr. Poopybutthole
31,170
91,153
239d 23h 17m
Yeah it was odd.
When I was little we lived in PNG and had some big earthquakes. It was nothing like that.
6.0 was a monthly thing for a while, which is what we just had here. Different feel to it
Looks like the majority of the quakes in PNG are off the coast, but more importantly, like 50 to 200km deep. Which makes them feel very different than a land based one 10km down. It also depends on the direction the earthquake "rips." The energy gets directed mostly in one direction (it radiates for sure, but one direction generally gets more damage).

It also depends on where you're at. Earthquakes have two waves and they travel at different speeds. The 7.1 that I was near the epicenter of had incredibly violent shaking. By the time it go to LA though, the two waves "split" and so they get the first wave, and then the second immediately after. It leads to longer shaking, but much less actual shaking (one because of distance, but two because the two waves aren't on top of each other).

And I'll say we didn't really have any trees fall over that I'm aware of. Which is kind of surprising with how violent it was. Then again, we also barely had anything in the house break somehow.
 

Gamma Rays

Large sized member
3,807
8,620
62d 23h 54m
My sister lives out in the countryside. She sort of thinks she heard the noise from the Volcano. She is still like "maybe it was" but if she's right, pretty awesome.

Outside in her garden and thought she heard an odd distant thunder noise. Even at the time she thought it didn't sound normal, then the news started to fill with stories of the volcanic explosion in Tonga. That's when she made the link.

She lives in Northern NSW, I used the town of Lismore which is 20 minutes drive away as it the distance calculator on google knows the place.

Distance kms.jpg


Distance miles.jpg
 

Gravel

Mr. Poopybutthole
31,170
91,153
239d 23h 17m
That seems incredibly unlikely she'd be able to hear it from 2000 miles away.
 

Masakari

¯\_(ツ)_/¯
<Gold Donor>
5,328
17,643
51d 2h 15m
Not really. They heard it in Alaska. When Krakatowa erupted in the 19th century the sound is said to have been heard thousands of miles away.

It's amazing we haven't had anything as big as that one in recent time. Send us into a couple years of colder weather to shut the climate change people up for a bit.
 

Aaron

Goonsquad Officer
<Bronze Donator>
6,751
13,274
63d 23h 2m
It's amazing we haven't had anything as big as that one in recent time. Send us into a couple years of colder weather to shut the climate change people up for a bit.
Not just eruptions like these. You also have the periodical eruptions in places such as Iceland that happen once every few hundred years and fuck up the European climate. For example, the Laki eruption in the 1780s is said to have directly caused the French Revolution. Then you have stellar events such as the Tungaska event, or the Carrington event. If anything, the past 100 years or so have been unusually calm on Planet Earth, meaning we have become complacent to the danger around us, and how any one of these events happening anywhere near "civilisation" could seriously fuck up life for a large number of people for a long time.
 

Masakari

¯\_(ツ)_/¯
<Gold Donor>
5,328
17,643
51d 2h 15m
Not just eruptions like these. You also have the periodical eruptions in places such as Iceland that happen once every few hundred years and fuck up the European climate. For example, the Laki eruption in the 1780s is said to have directly caused the French Revolution. Then you have stellar events such as the Tungaska event, or the Carrington event. If anything, the past 100 years or so have been unusually calm on Planet Earth, meaning we have become complacent to the danger around us, and how any one of these events happening anywhere near "civilisation" could seriously fuck up life for a large number of people for a long time.

Earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, celestial bodies, it really is crazy how we've been able to go get by without something significant happening. And as you point out, any of that happening around a major area would be insane. Can you imagine Tunguska over LA, NYC, London, Moscow, or Beijing? Yikes. We're due for a significant hardship.
 
  • 1Like
Reactions: chthonic-anemos