Re: Haiti's Killer Quake

[Guest guest]

" This might not be the end of the matter. A major quake hit Haiti in 1751. 19

years later another quake hit that was even stronger. The storm slowly crept

along westward until a major quake in Jamaica around 1900. "

I was listening to the same show while I was working on a project.

I think this situation is slightly different in one regard:

While the Haitian plates will continue to move in the jerky kind of way they

have done over the centuries (with another quake probably indeed due in 20

years) the New Madrid Zone seems to be accumulating a lot of stress with a high

probability of there being a 6.0 or higher within 40 years. This even as the

stress accumulates on the San s.

Let's suppose in 20 years the top half of the fault in Haiti unhitches and jumps

ahead like it needs to. It will send a tsunami toward the US along with a huge

shock. Maybe that is all that is needed to set off the New Madrid, and maybe

THAT is all that is needed to set of the San s.

I do not think it would all happen at once, but in terms of geologic time, it

would be a pop-pop-pop kind of event.

If you take a look at the way the faults run and how the plate boundaries run up

against themselves, it kind of makes sense.

You could also see a lot of magma come up through the faults, particularly

beneath Haiti, where the island is literally getting torn in opposite

directions.

The stress that has accumulated over time is just unbelievable, and according to

what the said on Discover, the fault goes all the way to Jamaica. So before the

end of our lives, we may see a lot of quakes.

Administrator

[Guest guest]

That fault doesn't appear on the smaller scale USGS maps, but there is one not far to the north that runs north of Haiti then along part of the Cuban coast then through Central America. It was along that fault that quakes struck both on land and in the Pacific. Actually looking at the map now, one recently struck on the Cuban coast or near enough to it. Probably rattled Gitmo pretty good even though it was in the 5 range.

The show did mention a quake storm in Turkey that has been marching westward for the last several decades. Then next one is likely to hit very close to Istanbul, which is a very large city and will surely be a major disaster.

It is also believed that an earthquake storm around the Mediterranean Sea wiped out pre-Classical Greek Civilizations and created a centuries long dark ages that times of the Iliad and the Oddessy were tales of the ending of that time. Even today I think that several major quakes in the right places, like say San Francisco, New Madrid, the Turkey fault and some in Europe and Japan, could cause a global economic catastrophe. Just one or the other of those in the US alone would be pretty bad for us.

In a message dated 2/12/2010 1:24:31 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, no_reply writes:

The stress that has accumulated over time is just unbelievable, and according to what the said on Discover, the fault goes all the way to Jamaica. So before the end of our lives, we may see a lot of quakes. Administrator

[Guest guest]

" Even today I think that several major quakes in the right places, like say San

Francisco, New Madrid, the Turkey fault and some in Europe and Japan, could

cause a global economic catastrophe. Just one or the other of those in the US

alone would be pretty bad for us. "

I believe so too. I do think that quake activity runs in cycles with periods of

high activity and periods of low activity. Who knows? We may be entering a

period of high activity.

Administrator