Apparently, something unknown has triggered a “terrible and global domino effect”, according to researchers who observe current world-wide earthquake reports.
Seismologists recognize that what occurs to the seismic activity goes beyond the level normally deemed as regular.
Absolutely nothing can strike worry in the hearts of people like natural disasters. Amongst them are earthquakes, happening a lot more typically recently. According to a top earthquake scientist Gheorghe Marmureanu, from Romania’s National Institute of Earth Physics the planet could be cracking up due to a series of enormous quakes in just 48 hours.
Inside only two days, 39 quakes occurred in the globe, he says. The series started with two enormous quakes in Indonesia measuring 8.6 and 8.2 on the Richter scale rapidly followed by three more only slightly smaller in Mexico within hours.
“There is no doubt that some thing is seriously incorrect. There have been too numerous strong earthquakes,” said Marmureanu.
“The quakes are a surprise that can’t be simply explained by existing scientific knowledge.
With the Indonesian quake for example, statistically, there should be one huge earthquake in this part of Asia each 500 years.
Nonetheless, since 2004, there had been already three quakes with a magnitude of over 8, which is not normal,” he mentioned.
Two killer earthquakes that struck northeastern Italy in nine days have shed light on the brutal but complicated seismic forces that grip the Italian peninsula, scientists say. “Southern Italy sits at a plate boundary. The boundary between the African plate and the Eurasian plate runs through the Mediterranean Sea just south of Italy,” Baptie mentioned in a phone interview from Edinburgh.
“The African plate is becoming subducted below the European plate, so that is why you get volcanoes like Etna and Vesuvius in southern Italy and why you get bigger earthquakes down there.
“Further north into Italy, earthquakes are still caused by that collision, but there are also much more complex factors going on as well.
Earthquakes can take place in any place on the Earth but the recent earthquake in Italy surprised seismologists. Theoretically – it should not come about. The events had been odd, effective, irregular and hard to explain. Regarding this particular region in Italy, researchers stated that these had been the strongest shocks ever recorded in the country.
As estimated by the Italian scientists, the earthquake occurred only 5 km beneath the ground and that’s quite surprising, so they begin to wonder.
From the epicenter to the boundary in between the tectonic plates is fairly a large distance – as significantly as 750 km – so it was expected that even if there was a quake, it should be a lot deeper. Typically, shallow crustal earthquakes take place inside about 30 km of the surface.
If the shocks occurred 500 kilometers beneath the ground, they would not be so destructive, simply because the kinetic energy would have sufficient time to disperse. But with such a shallow phenomenon, buildings in the affected region simply can not withstand the high acceleration of the ground.
Strong earthquakes worldwide are reported virtually daily. A medium-sized and also extremely shallow earthquake hit Antarctic region on June 1, 2012. Its location – 1058 km (657 miles) ESE of McMurdo Station, Antarctica and 1447 km (899 miles) SSW of South Pole, Antarctica.
Tremors of magnitude estimated at 5.6 on the Richter scale had a depth of 10 kilometers. Even though the earthquake was not very strong but seismic data indicate that there had been no earthquakes recorded in that part of Antartica for the at least 112 years.
There have been only a couple of large earthquakes – like one with magnitude 8 – in the Balleny Islands on March 25, 1998, also at the depth of 9.9 km (6.2 miles).
Considering the place, the spot of the incident and the earthquake itself are really puzzling for scientists.
It was followed by strong earthquakes worldwide and the long list of never ever ending earthquake reports goes on…
On June 7, 2012, fairly strong earthquake with a magnitude estimated at 6.2 on the Richter scale again occurred in Chile. The phenomenon occurred at 4:05 UTC and the epicenter of the quake was in central part of the cpuntry, approximately 78 kilometers from the town of Linares and 279 kilometers from the capital, Santiago de Chile.
And once more, depth of shocks was very little, only 10 kilometers beneath the surface and the receding of the ocean about 40 meters was reported in places closest to the epicenter.
As we mentioned, the list goes on.