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| Source: GOOD.is Infographics |
Aren't infographics just the niftiest? Check out more, including the "United States of Unhappy Campers" and "The Future of NASA" at www.good.is/infographics.
Showing posts with label Earthquake. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Earthquake. Show all posts
Saturday, March 5, 2011
GOOD goes Tectonic
As you may recall, I have a thing for GOOD.is infographics. Talk about an awesome way to graphically present a whole ton o' data in a clean and understandable way. Here is my latest favorite, "When Plates Collide", regarding earthquakes/plate tectonics:
Aren't infographics just the niftiest? Check out more, including the "United States of Unhappy Campers" and "The Future of NASA" at www.good.is/infographics.
Aren't infographics just the niftiest? Check out more, including the "United States of Unhappy Campers" and "The Future of NASA" at www.good.is/infographics.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Shake, Rattle, and Roll
Well Southern California got into the shaking action of 2010 with a bit of a bang Sunday with our very own grouping of earthquake events. With a 7.2M quake in Baja (the biggest earthquake I've ever felt) and a series of related events within minutes in Imperial County just Southeast of San Diego, its been a shaky couple of days.
With Twitter and Facebook on everyone's phones, it blew my mind how fast information travelled. Within a couple of minutes I was getting phone calls and texts from friends and family far and wide, checking that we were okay or, more commonly, comparing notes. Within a minute after the shaking stopped I had 20 friends on Facebook documenting the quake, and each of us racing to post USGS magnitude maps and links. It reminds me of the last big quake I was in, and how each of us in our office raced to our computers to see where the epicenter was and what the magnitude was.
For those of us who have lived through enough of these kinds of long and rolling earthquakes, they can come out as adrenaline pumping and sometimes even kind of fun experiences - only because damage is limited and no one gets seriously hurt. By the next day everyone (including myself) is complaining because aftershocks kept waking us or our pets and we all find our houses shaking to be annoying. Maybe that's why our out of state relatives think we are crazy granola eating hippies - because we find that the result of the Earth's tectonic plates shifting is a pain in our sides and gets in the way or our daily routines. Whatever the case, I'll take Sunday's 7.2 roller over a tornado any day.
Whatever the human response, the amount of energy being released along the San Andreas down here in So Cal is pretty impressive this week. Here's a map from the USGS:
With Twitter and Facebook on everyone's phones, it blew my mind how fast information travelled. Within a couple of minutes I was getting phone calls and texts from friends and family far and wide, checking that we were okay or, more commonly, comparing notes. Within a minute after the shaking stopped I had 20 friends on Facebook documenting the quake, and each of us racing to post USGS magnitude maps and links. It reminds me of the last big quake I was in, and how each of us in our office raced to our computers to see where the epicenter was and what the magnitude was.
For those of us who have lived through enough of these kinds of long and rolling earthquakes, they can come out as adrenaline pumping and sometimes even kind of fun experiences - only because damage is limited and no one gets seriously hurt. By the next day everyone (including myself) is complaining because aftershocks kept waking us or our pets and we all find our houses shaking to be annoying. Maybe that's why our out of state relatives think we are crazy granola eating hippies - because we find that the result of the Earth's tectonic plates shifting is a pain in our sides and gets in the way or our daily routines. Whatever the case, I'll take Sunday's 7.2 roller over a tornado any day.
Whatever the human response, the amount of energy being released along the San Andreas down here in So Cal is pretty impressive this week. Here's a map from the USGS:
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Waves and Shakes
I realize that I've been m.i.a. lately - my life has been a bit hectic, and I have not been finding much time to sit down at my computer.
In relation to the recent earthquake in Chile I've added below a great animation regarding the tsunami done by NOAA. I was really frustrated watching the news on Saturday with their coverage of the tsunami. Media types (and I'd guess a great deal of their viewers) seem to think of tsunamis as tidal waves, and I think underscored the dangers inherent in a tsunami, especially one started with the amount of force and energy as this one.
Rising sea levels alone (that's a lot of displaced water) are a serious concern, especially in coastal areas without a great deal of shoreline topography and with a great deal of "development". A friend of mine is in Indonesia right now with his girlfriend and staying in a little hut on stilts on the water - the potential for them to get wiped out to sea, stranded in their hut, or something of the sort was relatively high on Saturday. They wound up chartering a boat, leaving the island, and going to another one where they could go "inland" from the coast and stay safer.
In addition to the initial concern related to rising sea level, you also have to consider that while tsunami waves might not look like much in some areas, they can be fairly strong, close together, and have a great deal of suction at the trough of the wave - which is how you get those beautiful backwards flowing waves that we saw up and down the California coast on Sunday. Any strong normal current and/or even a strong wind will cause the same effects, but a lot of people might think "huge wave" when they hear tsunami and see something only a few feet tall and throw caution to the wind.
I was slightly amused, but I suppose more frustrated and a little disgusted with the reaction of the news anchors once the tsunami waves reached Hawaii. I think some of them figured they would be able to report in real time as the islands were destroyed by waves (think Thailand 2004) and when the waves didn't go crashing over the coastal highways and knock over houses they were absolutely crestfallen. That's just ridiculous.
In other, and related news, here is a map that was in the NY Times last week - delineating where shoddy building construction can lead to humanitarian devastation post earthquake. This data was compiled prior to the January 12, 2010 quake in Haiti, but it is interesting to note that Port Au Prince is projected to have a "very strong" intensity quake. Other urban areas with significant urban populations that rank on "very strong" along with PauP: Cairo and Delhi (each with a population between 10 and 20 million people). There are no Chilean or American urban areas on this map - because our building practices tend to be significantly better than most countries in the Middle East or South East Asia.
Just something to think on.
In relation to the recent earthquake in Chile I've added below a great animation regarding the tsunami done by NOAA. I was really frustrated watching the news on Saturday with their coverage of the tsunami. Media types (and I'd guess a great deal of their viewers) seem to think of tsunamis as tidal waves, and I think underscored the dangers inherent in a tsunami, especially one started with the amount of force and energy as this one.
Rising sea levels alone (that's a lot of displaced water) are a serious concern, especially in coastal areas without a great deal of shoreline topography and with a great deal of "development". A friend of mine is in Indonesia right now with his girlfriend and staying in a little hut on stilts on the water - the potential for them to get wiped out to sea, stranded in their hut, or something of the sort was relatively high on Saturday. They wound up chartering a boat, leaving the island, and going to another one where they could go "inland" from the coast and stay safer.
In addition to the initial concern related to rising sea level, you also have to consider that while tsunami waves might not look like much in some areas, they can be fairly strong, close together, and have a great deal of suction at the trough of the wave - which is how you get those beautiful backwards flowing waves that we saw up and down the California coast on Sunday. Any strong normal current and/or even a strong wind will cause the same effects, but a lot of people might think "huge wave" when they hear tsunami and see something only a few feet tall and throw caution to the wind.
I was slightly amused, but I suppose more frustrated and a little disgusted with the reaction of the news anchors once the tsunami waves reached Hawaii. I think some of them figured they would be able to report in real time as the islands were destroyed by waves (think Thailand 2004) and when the waves didn't go crashing over the coastal highways and knock over houses they were absolutely crestfallen. That's just ridiculous.
In other, and related news, here is a map that was in the NY Times last week - delineating where shoddy building construction can lead to humanitarian devastation post earthquake. This data was compiled prior to the January 12, 2010 quake in Haiti, but it is interesting to note that Port Au Prince is projected to have a "very strong" intensity quake. Other urban areas with significant urban populations that rank on "very strong" along with PauP: Cairo and Delhi (each with a population between 10 and 20 million people). There are no Chilean or American urban areas on this map - because our building practices tend to be significantly better than most countries in the Middle East or South East Asia.
Just something to think on.
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