From the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science , an interesting groundbreaking paper, ahem…but, wait for it, we’ll soon hear “Climate disruption causes more hurricanes and those cause more earthquakes” from the Rommists and McKibbenites.
Research study shows link between earthquakes and tropical cyclones
New study may help scientists identify regions at high risk for earthquakes
SAN FRANCISCO – Dec. 8, 2011 – A groundbreaking study led by University of Miami (UM) scientist Shimon Wdowinski shows that earthquakes, including the recent 2010 temblors in Haiti and Taiwan, may be triggered by tropical cyclones (hurricanes and typhoons). Wdowinski will discuss his findings during a presentation at the 2011 AGU Fall Meeting in San Francisco.
“Very wet rain events are the trigger,” said Wdowinski, associate research professor of marine geology and geophysics at the UM Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. “The heavy rain induces thousands of landslides and severe erosion, which removes ground material from the Earth’s surface, releasing the stress load and encouraging movement along faults.”
Wdowinski and a colleague from Florida International University analyzed data from quakes magnitude-6 and above in Taiwan and Haiti and found a strong temporal relationship between the two natural hazards, where large earthquakes occurred within four years after a very wet tropical cyclone season.
During the last 50 years three very wet tropical cyclone events – Typhoons Morakot, Herb and Flossie – were followed within four years by major earthquakes in Taiwan’s mountainous regions. The 2009 Morakot typhoon was followed by a M-6.2 in 2009 and M-6.4 in 2010. The 1996 Typhoon Herb was followed by M-6.2 in 1998 and M-7.6 in 1999 and the 1969 Typhoon Flossie was followed by a M-6.2 in 1972.
The 2010 M-7 earthquake in Haiti occurred in the mountainous region one-and-a-half years after two hurricanes and two tropical storms drenched the island nation within 25 days.
The researchers suggest that rain-induced landslides and excess rain carries eroded material downstream. As a result the surface load above the fault is lessened.
“The reduced load unclamp the faults, which can promote an earthquake,” said Wdowinski.
Fractures in Earth’s bedrock from the movement of tectonic plates, known as faults, build up stress as they attempt to slide past each other, periodically releasing the stress in the form of an earthquake.
According to the scientists, this earthquake-triggering mechanism is only viable on inclined faults, where the rupture by these faults has a significant vertical movement.
Wdowinski also shows a trend in the tropical cyclone-earthquake pattern exists in M-5 and above earthquakes. The researchers plan to analyze patterns in other seismically active mountainous regions – such as the Philippines and Japan – that are subjected to tropical cyclones activity.
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Well, the good news is that we now know how to stop earth quakes. Whenever it rains, we just get thousands of people to jump up an down to keep the tectonic plates in place. We need a public awareness campaign about this right away. I’ll volunteer my time for this worthy cause, and by “volunteer,” of course, I mean “accept ludicrous amounts of money.”
If we save just one life, it will be worth it.
The mass of the rain will far exceed the mass of rocks and soil moved by the rain.
If they found a relationship within a few days I’d think they might be on to something, but 4 years.
I’d need a mechanism and data supporting the existence of the mechanism to be persuade they may have something. As for a mechanism perhaps dams filling.
Why not the other way around? Can’t we say that earthquakes cause tropical storms? How many times has a tropical storm come withing four years of an earthquake?
Good point markus;
The norther parts of Australia see 30 foot tides (10m). How much load does this add and subtract twice daily?
Its not the very wet rain events that scare me, its the realy dry rain events that give me goose bumps.
Works the other way round as well. The August 23, 2011 earthquake in Virginia clearly attracted Hurricane Irene which was then over Hispanola. Irene got to Virginia on the 27th.
Needless to say, this theory seems pretty implausible.
Based on their logic, I am fearful of major earthquakes around all open-cast mine operations … are there any reported instances of ground faults around these types of mines?
And what was the amount of rainfall that caused the Japan quake some 70 miles off-shore?
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/environment/story/2011-12-06/japan-quake-seafloor-damage/51684786/1?csp=34news
Or the quake along the North American coast that spawned the Orphan Tsunami of 1700:
http://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/pp1707/
Shimon Wdowinski, you have a problem!
Very small sample size to draw conclusions from. I reckon that given the size of earth that there are going to be a few places where it rains a lot and is also seismically active, just like there’s going to be a few places where it doesn’t rain much but is seimically active, and there’s going to be a few places where it rains heaps but there’s never an earthquake.
If you drill a deep drill hole into solid rock, at about 4 km depth +/- 3 km, there is a zone where reasonable preconceptions about pressure do not hold because of mineral transitions involving dehydration. An observable effect, first reported from the Kola superdeep in Russia, is a zone of microfracturing. This zone does not have to be associated with a fault. Indeed, it might be a near-universal feature, as it was logged in all deep holes I was available to examine at the time. The cause would be downward movement of rocks, through loading from top sedimentation, tectonic movement or whatever method increased loading pressure on it. Such microfracturing (I postulated) could be energetic enough to report as an earthquake; and the mobility change it gives to the local rocks could help create blocks bounded by faults. I have loosely proposed this cause of earthquakes with colleagues, but have not published it. I now lack the means to investigate it, retired too long. There are many more deep drill holes now, than when I formulated the idea in the late 1970s, as part of work in conjunction with John Elliston and Prof S Warren Carey of plate tectonics fame, on the possibilty of colloidal chemistry being far more widespread than was hitherto thought.
The hypothesis is nice, because it explains the high frequency of shallow earthquakes and earthquakes in general on a geological time scale, in areas of plausibly high stability like Archaean cratons. It helps to explain faults because the bulk density of the affected rocks is changed and that extra volume has to move. The edges of where it moves would be called a fault. It helps to explain increased earthquake frequency in the “Ring of Fire” because the frequency of vertical movement of rock masses, and hence microfracturing, is greater than elsewhere.
The Kola exercise implicated groundwaters able to penetrate many km below the surface, so I am not surprised if there is an association between abnormally heavy precipitation and earthquakes.
An 8.0 on the Rictus Scale!
If you look at the EQ map of California you will notice there has never been a large EQ in the Hollister area. There is a reason for that. Apparently the rocks there have a high talc (baby powder) content (I’m not pulling your leg). The talc acts as a natural lubricant allowing the fault to slip where the pulverizing of the rocks releases the talc. This allows the rocks to slip at much lower stress rates and so rather than large quakes separated by long periods of quiet, in this area we see a constant drumbeat of very small ones.
The place to look out for is the Ft. Tejon area. It has been “vewy vewy” quiet. Too quiet. That generally means there is stress building and the fault is “locked”. We are seeing a lot of slip along the lower Elsinore, we see that transfer over to the Coyote Creek fault, then we see that transfer over to the San Andreas at about Banning. It’s been just about dead quiet from San Bernardino to Parkfield. A few “snap crackle pop” quakes recently between the Cajon pass and the Tejon pass but that’s about it.
I don’t think I’m going to be buying property in Antelope Valley anytime soon.
“Very wet” rain events as opposed to what sort of other rain events?
if it were sunspots or alignment of planets some folks would not even need aphysical mechanism
Has anyone forwarded this to the IPCC, looks like their kind of science
What a load of TRIPE…!
But 4 years after precipitation, Geoff Sherrington? What would be the properties of H2O at a temperature 3-4 klms underground? What is the porous quality of bedrock and just how much of water, under what type of pressure would be necessary to cause sufficient increases in their their bulk density?
Micro-fracturing force is a concept worthy in understanding seismic activity, however, it is unlikely one off events is enough of a cause. More like a continual feeding of a catalyst until tipping point.
There may be something in it but try this as a alternative:
OR Quakes and storms have common cause – driven by solar activity through sun-earth magnetic links. This is amply demonstrated by the success of our trial quake forecasts and forecasting of simultaneous storm events in the same time windows but in DIFFERENT PLACES. As an example see this pdf of events 5-6Nov http://www.weatheraction.com/docs/WANews11No31.pdf
This period of solar driven effects on earth was predicted by our Solar Lunar Action Technique and classified as
5-6 Nov Extra Top red enhanced category of ‘Red Warning’ – the strongest possible,
and specifically predicted in the same time window (with a day either side possible):
Extra solar activity – observed AR1339 (the biggest sunspot region for 6years, earth facing Nov 6th)
Tornado events in SW England – observed in Worcestershire
A very deep low crossing N USA – observed
Significant earthquakes somewhere – observed eg Oklahoma.
There were also deadly floods in North Italy and other quake/volcano events
The rain in Worcester and in Chicago did not lubricate the land of Oklahoma!
These Red warning or rather RTQ (Red Warning +Tornado-thunder + Quake-volcano (trial) high risk periods are published monthly as WeatherAction extreme events Rest Of World via http://bit.ly/utWrvj and are the ‘Mothers’ of all extreme weather events (many of which are predicted in USA, UK+Ireland and Europe) and major (ie extra to background) earthquakes – we believe (notwithstanding missed RTQ periods). A lot of these things have been monitored on Climate Realists.
Thanks, Piers Corbyn (@Piers_Corbyn and http://www.weatheraction.com)
An Irresistible conjunction, mud slides and earthquakes…Hmmm.
Just to throw something else into the mix.
Piers Corbyn is adapting his solar lunar weather prediction technique to predict earth quakes, so maybe they’ve stumbled onto a link between weather and quakes, but with their CO2 blinkers on have assumed that the weather is the cause, rather than both being effects of solar activity.
$0.02
“Ground-breaking” is a quite dreadful pun but it is also incorrect.
Earthquakes and volcanoes have been on warmlist from John Brignell for a while:
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm
Total number of things reputed to be caused by global warming = 862.
I’m a big fan of thinking outside the box, of overturning dogma, but this is so far outside the box that they’ve landed in Fantasyland. How often is Haiti not being hit by landslide-inducing tropical downpours, whether from hurricanes, tropical storms, or tropical depressions? It doesn’t even have to be a landfall event … the storm’s rain shield is all it takes.
This mob are drawing a very long bow here, Earthquakes could more easily be found to be tied to lunar cycles, in less of a time frame than four years. The last time I rode my motor cycle in very dry rain, as opposed to very wet rain hurt like hell. Some drops were the size of golf balls and about as hard.
Do these people doing these studies and releasing them have no shame.
“… The researchers suggest that rain-induced landslides and excess rain carries eroded material downstream. As a result the surface load above the fault is lessened….”
Suggest? Didn’t they count the landslides and calculated the weight relieved from the ground, therefore?
And, er, yes – we had very dry rain during november over here. It was so dry, that it added up to about 5 mm of rain per square meter, only.
John F. Hultquist says:
December 8, 2011 at 10:49 pm
Or the quake along the North American coast that spawned the Orphan Tsunami of 1700:
http://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/pp1707/
Shimon Wdowinski, you have a problem!
In visiting that link about Cascadia, one notes that in the preface they speak of adaptation to a Big One. Not of prevention, not of ‘oh noes’, not of endless streaming foolishness from an organization like the IPCC, but pure and simple adaptation. Let’s face it, a Big One WILL happen, so get on with life. In stark contrast to the conjecture, the politics, and the brouhaha over something that nobody can say for sure is happening, let alone define its cause. Hmmm. We really have gone bonkers.
Phil’s Dad says:
December 8, 2011 at 9:11 pm
Maybe its just me, but it seems round here that most of the rain is “very wet rain”
I’m working on dehydrated water. It would be so much lighter to carry around. When I’ve cracked the problem, I’ll send the paper to dhmo.org