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Japanese Earthquake

18 March 2020
Geology

At https://phys.org/news/2020-03-shifts-deep-geologic-magnified-great.html …. reference to the earthquake and tsunani that struck Japan back in 2011. It was the 4th most powerful sisnce modern record keeping began, generating tsunami waves that reached as high as 125 feet in height. It was responsible for a large loss of life – 20,000 souls. The earthquake is thought to have occurred in a subduction zone (btween two plates). Hundreds of square feet of sea floor luched horizontally by 160 feet it is calculated. Thrusting upwards by 33 feet. However, the numbers are said not to have added up leading to further research. The earthquake produced a wave 3 times higher than expected by such a plate movement. Japanese geologists, a few months afterwards, discovered another more unusual fault, secondary to the plate margin. It was located 20 miles closer to the coast and it was found it  had also moved. Did it magnify the tsunami wave? The fault, it is said, pulls apart rather than pusing up against each other – the exaact opposite of the subduction model. The fault moved 200 feet seawards – a remarkable movement. The authors of the article concentrate on how a more powerful tsunami wave was produced (two fault movements rather than a single one) but what does this say about Plate Tectonics.

  

At https://phys.org/news/2020-03-deep-ocean-conveyor-belt-current-tsunami.html … a deep ocean conveyor belt current creates conditions for tsunami events off the Falklands Islands. Geologists have found evidence of prehistoric submarine landslides along the Falklands Trough and the result of this may have been catastrophic tsunami waves …

  

At https://phys.org/news/2020-03-regional-nuclear-war-global-food.html … the concept of global winter, an extended planetary cold freeze brought on by airborne soot and debris generated by nuclear bombs is back on the agenda it would seem. It had fallen out of play in recent years and it is a surprise that it has resurfaced again – but of course, all  part of climate change and food shortages etc. Of course, it is not just stroppy regimes that are a danger as the same effects can be pinned on an atmospheric explosion of a large meteor. The study, in PNAS, focuses on crop reduction and feeding the billions if the climate suddenly switched to cool summers (such as frosts in July and August).

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