A magnitude 5.2 earthquake struck southern France Monday according to the French National Seismic Monitoring Network.
The quake was located near the resort city of Nice and was only 7 miles deep. A local seismic expert said that the quake should be seen as a “warning” to France.
“We don’t know when a big one will come, but it will and there will certainly be fatalities,” Remy Bossu of the European Mediterranean Seismological Center told a French newspaper. “In Italy or Greece everyone is fully aware of the risks simply because earthquakes happen more often. Everyone knows about them and it’s part of their culture, but not in France.”
Monday’s quake, which lasted 15 seconds, reportedly only caused minor damage to buildings throughout the region. Seismologists say a quake of this nature strikes France only one every 30 years.
The quake was the second surprise quake to strike France in the last six months. In November, a 4.5 magnitude quake struck in northwest France near Brittany.
The Japanese believe that the oarfish, which lives at ocean depths of up to 3,000 feet below the surface, are so sensitive to tectonic movements that they surface or beach themselves in advance of an earthquake.
That legend has Mexican residents concerned after two oarfish were caught on video attempting to beach themselves near Isla San Francisco in Baja California Sur.
The video of the incident was posted by the Shedd Aquarium of Chicago and show beachgoers pushing the fish back out to sea in an attempt to save their lives. Oarfish are notoriously bad swimmers and usually swim in a vertical manner rather than horizontally like other fish.
While oarfish can grow to over 50 feet long, these two fish were only around 15 feet long.
Some scientists dispute the idea of the fish being able to detect seismic shifts by pointing to other times the fish has been found on a beach without a major earthquake immediately following the beaching oar.
Another day, another massive quake and tsunami warning for Chile and parts of Peru.
A 7.6 magnitude earthquake struck in almost the same location as Tuesday’s 8.2 magnitude quake. The second quake is considered officially an aftershock of the Tuesday quake but it still provides a significant shock on its own.
The quake was so strong in neighboring Peru that residents of Tacna and Arequipa fled homes out of fear they would collapse.
The tsunami alert and precautionary evacuation of low-lying areas meant the residents spent a second night away from their homes.
Even the president of the country was forced to evacuate because of the tsunami warning. President Michelle Bachelet posted on Twitter: “I was evacuated like all citizens. One can see that the people are prepared.”
Authorities say at least six deaths have been confirmed but that because so many older structures have collapsed from the two quakes and it’s possible there are victims trapped inside those buildings.
Despite no tsunami warnings being issued for California, the West Coast has been experiencing unusual water movements since the 8.2 magnitude earthquake struck Chile’s northern coast.
Tide fluctuations, abnormal wave heights, and current changes have been reported and no tsunami warnings have been issued.
Tsunami waves hit the southern town of La Jolla, California and progressed north according to Bill Knight, an oceanographer with the National Tsunami Warning Center.
It is unlikely the tides will damage boats in the harbor, but boat owners could experience problems if they are returning to dock. California harbors have experienced three-to-four knot fluctuations that can push boaters and their vessels into the dock.
Knight added that the fluctuations could last a full day, but called the situation “pretty typical.”
“I think there’s nothing to worry about here, but we want to do our due diligence,” he said. “We haven’t seen anything yet to make us worry. And we don’t expect to.”
The United States Geological Survey reported a magnitude 5.8 earthquake struck off the coast of Panama near the Costa Rican border.
The earthquake’s center was located in the Chiriqui province on the side of the country facing the Pacific Ocean.
Panama’s civil defense organization evacuated schools and a nearby hospital.
There have been no reports of injury or damage at this time.
Californians have been keeping an eye on the San Andreas Fault for years fearing a “big one” would strike and cause massive damage.
Now, scientists say that a quake of 7.5 or bigger on a lesser known fault might be even more catastrophic than a quake along the San Andreas Fault line.
The Puente Hills thrust fault, which was the fault which brought Friday night’s 5.1 magnitude quake, runs from northern Orange County through downtown Los Angeles and all the way into Hollywood. The San Andreas Fault runs along the outskirts of Southern California’s metro areas.
Thus, scientists say, a massive quake along the Puente Hills fault would cause significantly more damage and likely brings hundreds or thousands of deaths. One estimate from the U.S. Geological Survey estimated as many as 1,800 deaths and $250 billion in damage.
The same fault in 1987 had a 5.9 quake that killed eight people and caused $350 million in damage.
One USGS staffer said that a 7.5 quake centered in Los Angeles would be so intense that it would throw heavy objects like a grand piano into the air.
A 4.8 magnitude earthquake rocked Yellowstone National Park Sunday morning, the strongest quake to strike the park since 1980.
University of Utah seismographic stations recorded the quake at 6:34 a.m. Sunday morning about 4 miles north-northeast of the Norris Geyser Basin.
The quake was far enough from residential areas to not cause significant damage but border towns in Montana about 20 miles from the epicenter reported significant shaking. Park rangers say that the park is very sparsely populated during this time of the year.
The USGS reported at least four aftershocks between magnitude 3.1 and 3.3.
Scientists have been watching the caldera of the Yellowstone Super Volcano closely as it has been rising since 2004, however, they said the recent quake is not the sign of an imminent eruption.
The quake comes less than two weeks after residents and reporters began to notice large migrations of bison and other animals away from the park. One video posted on YouTube March 20th showed a herd of bison running down a highway as if a predator was chasing them.
California residents shaken by an early morning 4.4 magnitude earthquake yesterday are concerned that the quake was not the main event.
Many residents are wondering if the quake was a foreshock of something bigger in the near future.
“Always the possibility that it’s a foreshock,” Robert Graves, a U.S. Geological Survey seismologist, told reports. He added that it would be more likely a more significant quake would happen hours after the foreshock rather than days later.
Graves did say it was likely there would be more aftershocks.
Seismologists at the USGS have not yet been able to determine the fault line where the quake happened but have called it a “rather typical earthquake.”
However, a CalTech seismologist said the quake happened in the northern edge of the Santa Monica Mountains area. He called it surprising because there had not been seismic activity in that region in many years.
A major 6.7 magnitude earthquake struck off the Chilean Pacific coast Sunday that forced the evacuation of almost 100,000 residents from coastal areas.
The quake struck about 6:16 p.m. local time about a depth of 12.5 miles 37 miles northwest of Iquique. The quake was followed by a series of strong aftershocks ranging from magnitude 4.9 to 5.2 according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Officials say that no major damage is reported from the quake however many buildings have broken windows and cracked doors.
Chile’s navy had detected the possibility of a small tsunami setting off the tsunami warning systems between the towns of Arica and Tocopilla. The tsunami was smaller than expected with only a crest of 13 inches above normal sea level.
Chile, located on the Pacific Ring of Fire, is one of the world’s most earthquake-prone countries and is the location of the strongest quake in recorded history, a 9.5 magnitude in 1960 that killed over 5,000 people.
Many Los Angelinos didn’t need their alarm clocks Monday morning due to an early morning earthquake.
The quake only measured 4.4 on the Richter scale but was so shallow that it caused a jolt significant enough to started the usually jaded southern California residents. The 6:25 a.m. quake was only 5 miles deep and centered around 15 miles west-northwest of L.A.’s downtown civic center.
That put the epicenter within 6 miles of Beverly Hills and 7 miles from University City and Santa Monica.
Police and fire officials say there were no immediate reports of significant damage. Residents of the area took to social media to say they had items fall off shelves in their home and a few had bookcases or curios knocked over by the shaking.
