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April 1923 Kamchatka Earthquake
On April 13, 1923 at 15:31 UTC, an earthquake occurred off the northern coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula in the USSR, present-day Russia. The earthquake had a surface-wave magnitude () of 6.8–7.3 and an estimated moment magnitude () of ~8.2. This event came just two months after a slightly larger earthquake with an epicenter struck south of the April event. Both earthquakes were tsunamigenic although the latter generated wave heights far exceeding that of the one in February. After two foreshocks of "moderate force", the main event caused considerable damage. Most of the 36 casualties were the result of the tsunami inundation rather than the earthquake. Tectonic setting The earthquake occurred off the Kamchatka Peninsula's east coast, which runs parallel to the Kuril-Kamchatka Trench, the area where the Pacific and Okhotsk Sea plates converge. Being older and therefore denser, the Pacific subducts beneath the Kamchatka Peninsula, which sits on the Okhotsk Sea Plate. These two ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy
Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky ( rus, Петропавловск-Камчатский, a=Петропавловск-Камчатский.ogg, p=pʲɪtrɐˈpavləfsk kɐmˈtɕatskʲɪj) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and the administrative center, administrative, industrial, scientific, and cultural center of Kamchatka Krai, Russia. As of the 2021 Census its population is 164,900. The city is widely known simply as ''Petropavlovsk'' (literally "city of St. Peter, Peter and St. Paul, Paul"). The adjective ''Kamchatsky'' ("Kamchatkan") was added to the official name in 1924. Geography The city is situated on high hills and surrounded by volcanoes. The surrounding terrain is mountainous enough that the horizon cannot be seen clearly from any point in town. Across Avacha Bay from the city in Vilyuchinsk is Russia's largest submarine base, the Rybachiy Nuclear Submarine Base, established during the Soviet period and still used by the Russian Navy. The city is located from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Subduction Zone
Subduction is a geological process in which the oceanic lithosphere is recycled into the Earth's mantle at convergent boundaries. Where the oceanic lithosphere of a tectonic plate converges with the less dense lithosphere of a second plate, the heavier plate dives beneath the second plate and sinks into the mantle. A region where this process occurs is known as a subduction zone, and its surface expression is known as an arc-trench complex. The process of subduction has created most of the Earth's continental crust. Rates of subduction are typically measured in centimeters per year, with the average rate of convergence being approximately two to eight centimeters per year along most plate boundaries. Subduction is possible because the cold oceanic lithosphere is slightly denser than the underlying asthenosphere, the hot, ductile layer in the upper mantle underlying the cold, rigid lithosphere. Once initiated, stable subduction is driven mostly by the negative buoyancy of the dens ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tsunami Earthquake
In seismology, a tsunami earthquake is an earthquake which triggers a tsunami of significantly greater magnitude, as measured by shorter-period seismic waves. The term was introduced by Japanese seismologist Hiroo Kanamori in 1972. Such events are a result of relatively slow rupture velocities. They are particularly dangerous as a large tsunami may arrive at a coastline with little or no warning. Characteristics The distinguishing feature for a tsunami earthquake is that the release of seismic energy occurs at long periods (low frequencies) relative to typical tsunamigenic earthquakes. Earthquakes of this type do not generally show the peaks of seismic wave activity associated with ordinary events. A tsunami earthquake can be defined as an undersea earthquake for which the surface wave magnitude Ms differs markedly from the moment magnitude Mw, because the former is calculated from surface waves with a period of about 20 seconds, whereas the latter is a measure of the total ene ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bering Island
Bering Island (russian: о́стров Бе́ринга, ''ostrov Beringa'') is located off the Kamchatka Peninsula in the Bering Sea. Description At long by wide, it is the largest and westernmost of the Commander Islands, with an area of . Most of Bering Island and several of the smaller islands in their entirety are now part of the Komandorsky Zapovednik nature preserve. Bering Island is treeless, desolate and experiences severe weather, including high winds, persistent fog and earthquakes. It had no year-round human residents until roughly 1826. Now, the village of Nikolskoye is home to 800 people, roughly three hundred of them identifying as Aleuts. The island's small population is involved mostly in fishing. off Bering Island's western shore lies small Toporkov Island (Ostrov Toporkov) . It is a round island with a diameter of . History In 1741 Commander Vitus Bering, sailing in ''Svyatoy Pyotr'' (''St. Peter'') for the Russian Navy, was shipwrecked and died o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Global Earthquake Model
The Global Earthquake Model (GEM) is a public–private partnership initiated in 2006 by the Global Science Forum of the OECD to develop global, open-source software, open-source risk assessment software and tools. With committed backing from academia, governments and industry, GEM contributes to achieving profound, lasting reductions in earthquake risk worldwide by following the priorities of the Hyogo Framework for Action. From 2009 to 2013 GEM is constructing its first working global earthquake model and will provide an authoritative standard for calculating and communicating earthquake risk worldwide. Since March 2009, GEM is a legal entity in the form of a non-profit foundation based in Pavia, Italy. The GEM Secretariat is hosted at the European Centre for Training and Research in Earthquake Engineering (EUCENTRE). The current secretary general is John Schneider. Mission Between 2000 and 2010 over half a million people died due to earthquakes and tsunamis, most of these in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
International Seismological Summary
The International Seismological Summary (ISS) is a global earthquake catalog covering the period from 1918 to 1963. The need for an international exchange of seismology data was recognised by John Milne John Milne (30 December 1850 – 31 July 1913) was a British geologist and mining engineer who worked on a horizontal seismograph. Biography Milne was born in Liverpool, England, the only child of John Milne of Milnrow, and at first raised in ..., who in 1899 began collating and publishing data from 35 observatories from around the world. Following his death in 1913, the ISS was founded at the end of the war in 1918 to continue the work. Since 1964 it has been published as the International Seismological Centre Bulletin. References External linksInternational Seismological Summary – USGS Seismological observatories, organisations and projects {{Seismology-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Richter
Charles Francis Richter (; April 26, 1900 – September 30, 1985) was an American seismology, seismologist and physicist. Richter is most famous as the creator of the Richter magnitude scale, which, until the development of the moment magnitude scale in 1979, quantified the size of earthquakes. Inspired by Kiyoo Wadati's 1928 paper on shallow and deep earthquakes, Richter first used the scale in 1935 after developing it in collaboration with Beno Gutenberg; both worked at the California Institute of Technology. The quote "logarithmic plots are a device of the devil" is attributed to Richter. Childhood and education Richter was born in Overpeck, Ohio. Richter had German heritage: his great-grandfather was a Forty-Eighters, Forty-Eighter, coming from Baden-Baden (today in Baden-Württemberg, Germany) in 1848 in the wake of the Revolutions of 1848 in the German states. Richter's parents Frederick William and Lillian Anna (Kinsinger) Richter, were divorced when he was very young. H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beno Gutenberg
Beno Gutenberg (; June 4, 1889 – January 25, 1960) was a German-American seismologist who made several important contributions to the science. He was a colleague and mentor of Charles Francis Richter at the California Institute of Technology and Richter's collaborator in developing the Richter magnitude scale for measuring an earthquake's magnitude. Early life, family and education Gutenberg was born in Darmstadt, Germany. His father owned a factory. He obtained his doctorate in physics from the University of Göttingen in 1911. His advisor was Emil Wiechert. Career During World War I, Gutenberg served in the German Army as a meteorologist in support of gas warfare operations. Gutenberg held positions at the University of Strasbourg, which he lost when Strasbourg became French in 1918. After some years during which he had to sustain himself with managing his father's soap factory, he obtained in 1926 a junior professorship at University of Frankfurt-am-Main, which was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Geophysical Data Center
The United States National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC) provided scientific stewardship, products and services for geophysical data describing the solid earth, marine, and solar-terrestrial environment, as well as earth observations from space. In 2015, NGDC was merged with the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) and the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) into the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI). Location and controlling bodies The NGDC, was located in Boulder, Colorado as a part of the US Department of Commerce (USDOC), National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service (NESDIS). Data holdings NGDC's data holdings contained more than 300 digital and analog databases, some of which were very large. As technology advanced, so did the search for more efficient ways of preserving these data. This data is now maintained by the NCEI. Data contributors NGDC worked closely with contri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale
The Modified Mercalli intensity scale (MM, MMI, or MCS), developed from Giuseppe Mercalli's Mercalli intensity scale of 1902, is a seismic intensity scale used for measuring the intensity of shaking produced by an earthquake. It measures the effects of an earthquake at a given location, distinguished from the earthquake's inherent force or strength as measured by seismic magnitude scales (such as the "" magnitude usually reported for an earthquake). While shaking is caused by the seismic energy released by an earthquake, earthquakes differ in how much of their energy is radiated as seismic waves. Deeper earthquakes also have less interaction with the surface, and their energy is spread out across a larger volume. Shaking intensity is localized, generally diminishing with distance from the earthquake's epicenter, but can be amplified in sedimentary basins and certain kinds of unconsolidated soils. Intensity scales empirically categorize the intensity of shaking based on the effect ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hypocenter
In seismology, a hypocenter or hypocentre () is the point of origin of an earthquake or a subsurface nuclear explosion. A synonym is the focus of an earthquake. Earthquakes An earthquake's hypocenter is the position where the strain energy stored in the rock is first released, marking the point where the fault begins to rupture.''The hypocenter is the point within the earth where an earthquake rupture starts. The epicenter is the point directly above it at the surface of the Earth. Also commonly termed the focus.'' This occurs directly beneath the epicenter, at a distance known as the ''hypocentral depth'' or ''focal depth''. The focal depth can be calculated from measurements based on seismic wave phenomena. As with all wave phenomena in physics, there is uncertainty in such measurements that grows with the wavelength so the focal depth of the source of these long-wavelength (low frequency) waves is difficult to determine exactly. Very strong earthquakes radiate a large fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Megathrust Earthquakes
Megathrust earthquakes occur at convergent plate boundaries, where one tectonic plate is forced underneath another. The earthquakes are caused by slip along the thrust fault that forms the contact between the two plates. These interplate earthquakes are the planet's most powerful, with moment magnitudes (''Mw'') that can exceed 9.0. Since 1900, all earthquakes of magnitude 9.0 or greater have been megathrust earthquakes. The thrust faults responsible for megathrust earthquakes often lie at the bottom of oceanic trenches; in such cases, the earthquakes can abruptly displace the sea floor over a large area. As a result, megathrust earthquakes often generate tsunamis that are considerably more destructive than the earthquakes themselves. Teletsunamis can cross ocean basins to devastate areas far from the original earthquake. Terminology and mechanism The term ''megathrust'' refers to an extremely large thrust fault, typically formed at the plate interface along a subduction zone ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
