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April 25, 2017
Strong earthquake widely filmed in Chile
A swarm of magnitude ~5-6 earthquakes offshore Chile on April 23 was punctuated two days later by a much larger M6.9 earthquake yesterday evening. While nobody could have specifically predicted the size and timing of this earthquake, it is a terribly unsurprising event, occurring as it did in the midst of this swarm of heightened seismic activity, and in the highly seismically hazardous region of coastal Chile. As has been pointed out …
September 24, 2015
Chile keeps having earthquakes
…and keeps surviving them barely scathed. Chile has this year been rocked by its 3rd Great earthquake this century–its 14th if you include the last. Though the earthquake’s magnitude and the resulting Pacific-wide tsunami earned it headlines, it was a very mild earthquake in the global scheme of seismic impacts. This has a bit to do with the nature of offshore, subduction zone earthquakes, and a LOT to do with …
April 2, 2014
Monstrous earthquake in Chile… as it unfolds
The northern coast of Chile has been struck by a Great earthquake this evening, shaking the South America continent for hundreds of miles and thrusting a tsunami onshore and across the Pacific Ocean. Notably, this earthquake occurred in a well known seismic gap, the sole reach of South America’s Pacific coast subduction zone that did not rupture in the 20th (or 21st) century. In that sense, this was one of …
March 30, 2012
Deep earthquake rumbles Chile
On March 25, 2012 a magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck central Chile–the same region that was rocked in 2010 by an the Great 8.8 quake. This one was much smaller than that, and at a depth of 34km was more mild at the surface than it could have been, but it nonetheless walloped the region just before dusk on Monday, and plenty of people recorded it. In fact, it interrupted a …
February 28, 2011
Tsunami misconceptions
Exactly one year ago today we (some of us) sat glued to our TVs as the tsunami generated by the gargantuan 8.8 Chilean earthquake barreled into bays around the Pacific Ocean. This is what we saw: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MI4NwahF5wI] Many people found that anti-climactic, especially in comparison to this famous video of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami pouring into Patong Beach, or this dramatic one of the ’04 tsunami crashing ashore at another …
