We continue to mess with the earth..and wonder why....

[murray hill farm]

we are reaping the consequenses...everything on earth is connected..if the temp of the earth rises one degree, is it so hard to wonder why all the earth is effected. there is a lot of talk now about developing warning systems for natural desasters, but no talk about looking at what the real warning should be about..listening to the earth that is sending out its own warnings..loud and clear.

[Squatch]

1. Everytime a butterfly farts in China

God kills a kitten.

[Bandit]

3. Ahhh The sound of a million butterfly farts

Does it make a tree fall in the woods?

[KlatooBNikto]

4. Is your God's name Bill Frist?

[Squatch]

6. No, my God's a waffle

Homer: Oh, Lord! Why do You mock me? (looking up at ceiling). Marge: Homer, that's not God. That's a waffle Bart stuck to the ceiling. (Marge pries the waffle off the ceiling). Homer: Lord, I know I shouldn't eat Thee, but... (munch munch munch) mmmm...sacrelicious.



<Note to real God: I don't mean to be sacrelicious...er...sacreligious, but this seemed funny at the time. No harm no foul, M-kay?>

[commander bunnypants]

2. i agree

Mother nature is getting pissed

CB

[Eurobabe]

5. too bad no sinkholes or tsunamis in Crawford.

:mad:

[vpigrad]

7. Global warming causes things to expand...

like the mantle of the Earth which causes earthquakes. I'm torn between the theory that the earthquake was directly man-made or indirectly man-made due to global warming. I'd like to see more evidence either way.

[Squatch]

8. (cough, cough, sputter)

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha....

<gasp>

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha...

Plate tectonics and global warming all tied up in one neat little package.

[Tacos al Carbon]

44. Personally, I think we've saved the earth

Nuclear testing has caused unstable plates to stabilize , thus preventing more massive earthquakes and tsunamis that surely would have killed all of the baby seals by now. Global warming has prevented millions of caribou from freezing to death and the constant pounding of their hooves have packed down and thus stabilized the arctic shelves and tectonic plates upon which they sit, thus preventing more massive disasters.

Of course, we have the cows to thank for all this, who gave us global warming through their massive gaseous emissions (though I must say that my cats do what they can to contribute).

[murray hill farm]

11. not one mention of it anywhere..so far

everything on earth is connected..some talk about the earth axis being just a tiny bit moved by this quake...no talk about the consequenses of it, but of course there will be consequenses, some talk now of the mountain shelf in the carary islands that..if it falls..or when it falls...and the resulting tsunami that will wipe out the atlantic coasts of the americas...but no talk of did this quake that moved the whole earth..maybe..effect this shelf...weaken it...no one connects the dots...and if they do, no one listens. The earth is sending out warnings.

[Squatch]

12. Axis moved ONE INCH...the day got shorter by 3 MICROSECONDS

I'm sure we'll survive.

[murray hill farm]

19. and u think 1 inch is not important?

have u researched this? what makes u think it is not significant? No effect from this? You do not know..and neither do i! On earth..all is connected.

[Squatch]

22. Not significant...let's scale it, shall we?

1 inch(est additional tilt) - to - 8000 miles (earth's diameter)

= 2x10^-9

I would say that's pretty insignificant.

[murray hill farm]

27. mathematically insignificant?

as compared to what previous insignificant event at the same insignificant level ??? Or lesser or greater level? mathematical analysis to determine insignificance, would need more than a calculator to determine the significance of one event.

[Squatch]

28. Ah... fuck it.

I'll go back to praying to my waffle god and hopi scientists.

[murray hill farm]

34. Ha!

OK then!!!

[Ediacara]

58. The axis is always moving

There is a cyclic movement of the polar axis. The one inch changes nothing.

[WoodrowFan]

52. and it made me late for work! (NT)

[Royal Observer]

35. Geez

Global warming has been around for 15 years and look at the trouble it's caused. Wait 'till it really gets going! Holy Cow, were in for it!!

[Ediacara]

57. The mantle doesn't cause earthquakes

Every single earthquake is in the crust. This earthquake was in the crust. The mantle cannot have earthquakes because it deforms plastically, not brittlely.

Global warming will not effect the actual geology of the Earth, it's too small a change. The brittle-plastic transition zone is 500 degrees C. Do you really think a change of 3 or 4 degrees through 30 or 40 kms of rock will affect that?

This earthquake was caused by the Indian plate subducting under the Burma plate. End of story.

[Jacobin]

9. Wha?

Here are the continents billions of years ago:



Here are the continents today showing the directions they are drifting toward:




When the tectonic plates slip, the crust of the earth can buckle and that buckling can cause large volumes of water to shift rapidly, causing large waves to hit coastlines.

The suggestion that somehow an earthquake and a tsunami are unnatural, man-made events is something I would expect from a fundamentalist preacher. I'm amazed to read some of these threads.

Is the suggestion of your thread that the plates would not move if man hadn't been buring fossil fuels for the last hundred years? Do you have anything to support that?

[cattleman22]

13. I agree: Wacko Environmentalists = Fundamentalist preacher. n/t

[LSK]

14. I agree, some of you need to educate yourselves

[murray hill farm]

21. The "link" i am trying to make is this...

"Earth to jacobin..all is connected."

[Jacobin]

29. Very Holistic

And completely not subject to rational debate.

I'll leave you to your ephemeral conjecture and tea leaves.

Cheers.

[Heimdallr]

54. White courtesy telephone for Mexicopat....

Please pick up the white courtesy telephone and supply one, single, credible piece of evidence that the earthquake was in any verifiable way linked to global warming.

[Tacos al Carbon]

45. AAARRRGGGHHH!!!! We're going to crash into Japan!!!

EOM

[azndndude]

10. The Hopi Indians warned of messing with Mother Earth

[murray hill farm]

15. maybe sometimes the biblical folks were right..ha!

maybe the end of times in the bible is just a prediction of how humans might bring on their own demise. The earth does evolve and it does change..some hits on the earth were from meteorites that caused huge changes in the earth..including tsunamis..this is how our planet evolved..in a natural sense...and that has not stopped now....but that does not mean that we are not contributing to our own demise...by ignoring that everything on earth is connected...and that we can hasten our demise by polluting the earth and continuing to do so even when we do know and can see the immediate ...and growing danger of doing so. One could say that dolphins got along just fine for the whole history of earth..or dolphins, anyway..and that to now think that we as humans should act to save them..is redicules...since they were here before us and did well on their own, is to ignore the fact that the reason they got along well before our intervention, is because humans were not around to mess with their natural ..and healthy to them..environment. no, i am not claiming direct A caused B to happen...such as we pollute, tsunami results..this particular tsunami results, but i am saying that, on earth, all is connected and that we do need to begin to know that one thing if we are to survive.

[newyawker99]

50. Hi azndndude!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[azndndude]

16. Links to Hopi Prophecies

http://www.thebearbyte.com/Hopi/HopiPro5TB.htm
http://www.ausbcomp.com/redman/hopi_prophecy.htm
http://www.v-j-enterprises.com/hopi.html

[azndndude]

17. wrong link

Here is right link for Hopi Prophocies
http://www.thebearbyte.com/Hopi/HopiProSTB.htm

READ IT!!!! PASS IT ALONG!!!!!

[Squatch]

18. My waffle god does not allow me to read other deities predictions.

[WoodrowFan]

51. round or square

is that a round or a square waffle?? what type of syrup??

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

20. Lovely

I'm glad to see that we here at DU have finally managed to come up with something dumber than "creation science"

[murray hill farm]

24. creation science????

How about.."for every action, there is a reaction" earth science, I believe..hahahaha

[Squatch]

25. "earth science, I believe"

I guess you could call it that. LOL.

<Newton turns in his grave>

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

26. earth "science"

Earth science has absolutely nothing to say about humans creating 9.0 earthquakes, except "bullshit." From the way some people are talking, you'd think this sort of thing never happened before.

[murray hill farm]

32. no one is saying that...

no one said that there have never been quakes or tsunamis have never happened before...the question is why do you leap to that conclusion? i think that folks say what u have just said..that re framing of the subject into something foolish so that they can argue better against what they are really saying..and actually it is a very effective debate tool..but doesn't add to the discussion..since you are arguing apples to the oranges discussion.

[murray hill farm]

37. basic law of physics

For every action, there is a reaction.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

47. Basic science 101, 1st grade level

Correlation does not imply causation.

[murray hill farm]

48. no, it goes like this...

correlation does not necessarily infer causation..which is true. so, if i feed you poison..and u die, we cannot assume causation..maybe u died of a heart attack..or a massive stroke or some other cause..maybe a piano fell on your head...still..one would want to check it out...or not...in your case....ha! Same with this "debate"....are u against scientific inquiry in general...or just when u would rather not see causation.?

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

49. Okayyyyyy...

I'm trying *really* hard to understand what you're getting at. You continue to assert that human actions might have had something to do with the earthquake (or just the tsunami - it's hard to tell from your posts.) But you haven't provided any sort of evidence, or even a hypothesis except some kind of vague reference to global warming. Global warming has no proven links with earthquakes or tsunami whatsoever, a point which you keep glossing over by stating some variant of "every action has a reaction."

>are u against scientific inquiry in general

I is not a scienceizzle hata. Again, if you can show one single credible piece of evidence, or an actual *hypothesis* of any kind, then we can talk. But all you've presented so far are a couple of vague references to human action. You haven't discussed any mechanisms whereby human action might cause this earthquake. You haven't brought forth any evidence that suggests human actions might be the cause. You haven't even presented any statistics that show that the current frequency of large-scale geological events is any different from the historical frequency of those events.

I am a scientist (alright, a computer scientist, but the methods are the same :) ) We deal in fact. We formulate a hypothesis to explain the unexplained. As far as I can tell, there's nothing unexplained about this earthquake. You keep making reference to human intervention having something to do with the magnitude and freqency of these events, but you haven't shown any data that suggest there is any difference between the past and current frequency of large-scale tectonic events. I'm assuming that you don't have any such data (not that it's particularly difficult to come by if you're interested.) So what do you want me to do? Is it possible that human actions had something to do with the earthquake? I guess so, in the strictest sense that almost anything is possible. The burden of proof falls upon the person who presents the hypothesis. I'm not saying that you're wrong. I'm saying PROVE that you aren't! I'm under no obligation to give credence to your gibberish if you're unwilling or unable to back up your assertions with fact.

[The Straight Story]

59. I would like to take a stab at a hypothesis

For the sake of discussion (I don't believe it but just wanted to hop in for some fun btw).

According to USGS this quake, when it all settles down, can hasten other quakes of large size depending on where the new pressure is (and slow down the coming of large quakes in other areas by lessening of pressure) See: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqinthenews/2004/usslav/neic_slav_faq.html

OK - now with that in mind: Depletetion of large amounts of fossil fuels and moving large amounts of mass around (ie building large cities in certain areas by moving rock from one location to the city) can perhaps have a similar effect over time on a small scale (or maybe large). Oil, Natural Gas, et al, are sucked from areas changing the mass of the area - so pressure on those areas could change which could have an affect on things. It is all probably too complex to analyze and take into effect of course.

In short - earthquakes and tsumani's have always been around, as have volcanos, but some would argue that some things we do (or could do, like a nuclear waepon under the crust, HAARP, et al and so on) can impact those things (in both the positive and negative).

Now do I believe that is the case? No, not really. But I can grasp how some people could think it might indeed be the case. Heck folks could even argue global warming might cause it as ice melts and earth mass shifts causing an effect on rotation and shearing forces, blah blah blah.

Who knows, but it is fun to try and figure out ways people you think are wrong could be right :)

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

61. thank you!

>can hasten other quakes of large size depending on where the new
>pressure is

This is especially true for segments of a fault system neighboring the segment which experienced the quake. It's really just shifting the burden from one area to another.

>OK - now with that in mind: Depletetion of large amounts of fossil
>fuels and moving large amounts of mass around (ie building large cities
> in certain areas by moving rock from one location to the city) can
>perhaps have a similar effect over time on a small scale

There are some really well-known cases where man-made lakes have caused earthquakes, due to the added mass changing the stress on the underlying rock. These quakes have, if memory serves, ranged as high as 5.0. As for moving rock around, you'd have to move a hell of a lot of rock. (Interesting but completely irrelevant point: Midtown Manhattan today is lighter than it was before the skyscrapers were built, because the mass of rock excavated for the foundations of the skyscrapers is actually less than the mass of the skyscrapers themselves.)

> (or maybe large)

This is one of the main arguments against China's construction of the three gorges dam. It's going to put a huge amount of water on top of a very geologically active area. I guess we'll find out how big these events can get.

>It is all probably too complex to analyze and take into effect of
>course.

Yeah, welcome to tectonics! :)

>Oil, Natural Gas, et al, are sucked from areas changing the mass of the
> area - so pressure on those areas could change which could have an
>affect on things.

There are a lot of known cases of subsidence resulting from this type of activity, but nothing I know of in terms of earthquakes or larger-scale events.


>In short - earthquakes and tsumani's have always been around, as have
> volcanos, but some would argue that some things we do (or could do,
>like a nuclear waepon under the crust, HAARP, et al and so on) can
>impact those things (in both the positive and negative).

The thing is that in most of these cases, the engergy we're adding or subtracting from the system amounts to a miniscule fraction of the total energy of the system, so it's hard for me to see how any of these things might have a serious impact.

>Now do I believe that is the case? No, not really. But I can grasp
>how some people could think it might indeed be the case. Heck folks
>could even argue global warming might cause it as ice melts and earth
> mass shifts causing an effect on rotation and shearing forces, blah
>blah blah.

Actually, it wouldn't surprise me at all to find that glacial melting could trigger small or even medium-sized earthquakes. All of that ice is forcing the underlying rock down into the mantle a bit, and as the ice melts and the earth rebounds, it will likely cause earthquakes. Not so sure about shearing forces :)

>Who knows, but it is fun to try and figure out ways people you think
>are wrong could be right :)

Well, I think we'd be silly to assume that we have no effect. We are only just beginning to explore the interactions between geology, climatology, and ecology. The lake/glacier earthquakes are a good example of that. Another is that climate change, with its inherent changes in precipitation patterns, could change the rate of erosion significantly in some areas (and thus re-arrange the mass of the earth, thus causing etc. etc. etc.)

The problems I have with the ideas posted in this thread are twofold:

1) Nobody here has bothered to look at whether the current frequency of large-scale geologic events is different than the past frequency of those events. Hence, I find comments suggesting that the current rate is higher to be completely uninformed. It seems to me that people are paying a lot more attention now, and with the internet it's easy to get news of these events from all over the world, whereas in the past they might never be mentioned except in some backwoods section of the NY Times or similar large newspaper.

2) The instances in which man has impacted geology are generally in very limited, local ways. The ways in which we have impacted tectonics specifically are extremely limited, and instances of such events are extremely rare and usually very localized (the aforementioned lake earthquakes, etc.) There's nothing to suggest that this earthquake, which is a completely natural and expected part of the India/australia plate's subduction, was in any way modified, impacted, or otherwise determined by human interaction with the environment. Assertions that the planet is "angry" at us are just plain silly. Rocks do not get pissed. I know this because I've beat on them with hammers from time to time and they don't make so much as a peep. Ocean crust subduction is a normal part of plate tectonics, and there's no reason to invoke some kind of outside agitator without any evidence.

Anyway, if Mother Earth is pissed at us, I figure she'd want to send the tsunami to Texas or Washington D.C. rather than a bunch of poor fishing villages and tourist resorts :)

[murray hill farm]

60. OK..gottcha

here is the problem...i am not presenting a scientific hypothesis here...was not my intention at all...and have no need to prove what i have given as my opinion..in any sense at all..much less scientific proof. i have no idea..in the proof sense of things..if this earthquake is the result of global warming or the hand of god or elf's living in the center of the earth...or any such thing..ha! But yes..i do believe that it is more than possible that a multitude of natural disasters that we are experiencing are a result of our lack of respect for the earth that is our home...i think there is much research that does reflect the harmful changes to the earth and the atmosphere due to the reckless disregard of the humans who live on the earth..and no, i do not have a list of all the research on this...so, if it is your need to see it, do look it up. It is not my attempt to prove anything here...and...maybe i am terrible wrong here...and all is well with the earth environment and there will be no consequences whatsoever from our disregard of it. so..guess where i stand on this is, if you need absolute proof before u consider that on earth all is connected...and that there are consequences to the disregard of that connectedness...then u prove it....you are the scientist after all..not me..it is your need to have proof before u will look at an idea..not mine.

[Heimdallr]

55. You can't even get rhetoric right; your science is worse

No, it's correlation does not imply causation. Correlation cannot, dy definition, infer anything. Only you, as an individual, can infer. All correlation can do is imply, and no, 'not necessarily' is not found in the original maxim.

Glad I could clear that up for ya.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

42. Now wait a sec. Dumb, maybe, but creation "science" wins hands down

Can't get much dumber than THAT.

[ShaneGR]

23. This has NOTHING to do with global warming...

An earthquake is caused by increasing pressure between two or more underground techtonic plates. Sometimes that pressure builds to a critical mass and causes a movement of those plates. Sometimes this movement is sideways, sometimes this movement is up and down (As was the case in the Indian ocean earthquake).

This occurs regularly every half century or more in the same regions, and will continue to happen whether it's cold or warm.

This particular earthquake, and the resulting tsunami, is not a new phenomenon. They've been happening forever. There are several other hotspots (the chief threat the the US being the plates off the Alaska coasts which could threaten the west coast and all the way to eastern asia).

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

30. Correct.

>This occurs regularly every half century or more in the same regions,
>and will continue to happen whether it's cold or warm.

And it's also responsible for the fact that you simply can't find ocean crust older than several hundred million years - it's all gone down into ocean trenches. I'm wondering how much of the gibberish I'm seeing around here is simply the result of ignorance of the basic points of plate tectonics. While this event is certainly an unprecedented human tragedy, as a geological event it is not at all unusual, and it certainly did not surprise very many earth scientists. This is simply what subducting plates do - make big damn earthquakes (and tsunami, and volcanoes like the Cascades as well)

[Jacobin]

31. but but but, the earth is only 4,654 years old

and and and the Grand Canyon was made by the Great Flood described in the bible.....and and and....me thinks the original poster is lost and wandered into DU accidentally.

The original post is worthy of another website which shall remain unnamed.

[murray hill farm]

41. why is it u think this is bible thumping thread? ha!

what does anything about the messing with earths environment and its consequenses on the earth...and us humans who live here..cause u to think it has something to do the bible? How do u make that leap?

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

46. Pardon?

I'm simply saying that with respect to science, some of the ideas in this thread are every bit as laughable as "creation" science and stem from the same mentality - i.e. the willingness to believe something in the face of no evidence (or in both cases, evidence to the contrary)

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

63. "which shall remain unnamed"

Slashdot?

:)

[Royal Observer]

40. Some folks

have an inflated opinion about what humans can do. When it come to destruction; we're rather puny compared to the forces of nature.

[Royal Observer]

33. There were earthquakes, tsunamis

and other disasters long before we started messing with the earth.

[murray hill farm]

36. yep!!

so true! But...we do very much effect the earth as humans! There were floods and droughts before we started messing with the earth too....and we do know that our "messing" does have an effect now on the the frequency and dynamics of these events...and that we do have an effect on nature and the well being of the earth.

[Royal Observer]

38. We mess it up a little bit

like building a dam that bursts and cut down too much timber and stuff like that. But we can't mess it up as Mother Nature can. As you just saw; she can do a bang up job when she wants to.

[SidDithers]

53. Humans are affecting the climate on Earth, because weather patterns...

are influenced by Earth's atmosphere, and we're doing our best to fuck up an atmosphere that has worked perfectly well for billions of years.

We are not affecting the movement of tectonic plates. They have been moving, also for billions of years, and will continue to do so long after we've departed.

Sid

edit speeling

[maveric]

39. We're not damaging the earth. We're damaging human life.

The planet will be fine long after humans are gone.
There's a George Carlin take on this.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

43. More like "life in general".

Otherwise I agree. We'll very likely kill ourselves and lots of other species but the biosphere can recover like it did with other extinctions. (short of a nuclear war of course)

[Ediacara]

56. GLOBAL WARMING DIDN'T CAUSE THE EARTHQUAKE

This is reposted from another thread:
-------------------
This isn't a straw that breaks the camel's back thing.... The camel is already being hit by a train from the left and the right. The lithostatic pressure at the ocean floor due to the weight of the ocean in, let's say, the west coast of Sumatra is 58.8 kPa.

P_lith = pgh

P_lith = 1.0 x 9.8 x 6000

P_lith = 58.8 kPa

Add 1m of water, and the P_lith has increased all the way up to 58.81 kPa. Add 10 m of water, and the P_lith is up to 58.9 kPa. So an increase of 10 m of water, increased the P_lith due to the weight of the ocean by 0.17%.

BUT, let's add in the P_lith from the rock overlying the focus of the earthquake. This was a really rather shallow quake, and was only 6km deep. Plugging into the equation, we see:

P_lith = pgh

P_lith = 2.7 x 9.8 x 6000

P_lith = 158.8 kPa

Wow, that's quite a bit more. And now, add in the increase from 10m of water, and it's just increasing the lithostatic pressure at the focus by 0.046%.

Add in the stresses from subduction, which are in gPa, and you'll soon see that the P_lith from filling up oceans is really really REALLY inconsequential.
---------------

Tectonism has been going on since the formation of the Earth, and Tsunamis are as old as the oceans. We didn't cause this. We can't cause this.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

62. Terribly sorry...

This is "baseless speculation." You want fact-based discussion, room 152.