Sulawesi Shaking

[BigH]

Hey all - see attached file. Have a good one.

 

[Ron]

BigH...glad you and your family are OK....A Ravens Shirt??!!
Nice house. Might be a bit of a shear problem with your columns in a bigger quake.

 

[dgillette]

What's with all the earthquakes in Indonesia lately? It seems there have been a huge number of large ones over the last three to five years. Is that "normal" activity, or something unusual for the area?

But seriously, folks, how can a guy from NE OH even OWN a Ravens shirt? Surely you haven't forgotten what Art Modell did to Cleveland in 1996? Nevermore.

DRG

 

[BigH]

On the serious side, I needed a T when I was in Thailand - my size - and it was the only one I could find. It's comfortable - maybe I should use a magic marker like Sarah Palin did to the McCain hat she was wearing recently on vacation. I do remember - and I have always been upset that Ozzie Newsome stayed with them - but Jim Brown, god bless (in our forum I'm allowed to say that!), stayed with the Browns as the Browns! Hopefully with Mangini maybe getting on his feet and having Holmgren on board will turn it around.

As to the shaking side - I think this area always had them - they do seem to be a bit more than normal. I've felt about 5 shocks here and likely there were others that I didn't. interestingly the dam and plant site seismographs didn't show any activity (the last one broke one toilet bowl, I hear, but it might have been for other reasons!). My wife felt the one off Bali about 4 months ago - maybe there are some angry people down in the bowels of the earth!

 

[BigH]

What a big shake in Haiti!! Not sure I'd go back to sleep after that one. I gather it was a 7.0 but right under the capital.

 

[Ron]

BigH... 7.0 and rather shallow,plus close to Port-Au-Prince. Not a good combination, particularly since the average structure there is little more than a house of cards.

 

[Mccoy]

Have you seen the harbour's quay, the clip on the CNN newspage?

The main quay has totally disappeared and the rail crane is conspicuosly tilted.
It would suggest massive liquefaction, or submarine landslide or soil collapse due to anomalous hydralic pressures

 

[Ron]

McCoy...I would lean toward liquefaction...soils in the area are either fine sands with some silts and marine clays or rock...not much in between. Consider the shallowness of the quake, the soils probably took a beating.

 

[Mccoy]

Ron,
do you know the subsoil in that island by direct experience or do you have some other source?

 

[Ron]

Indirectly....we did some lab testing on samples back about 25 years ago. It does vary a lot though.

 

[Ron]

Oops!!McCoy..I was wrong. The project I was thinking of was significantly Northwest of the area where the soils are quite a bit different...mostly limestones, fine sands, and clays.

Not sure of the Haitian soils or conditions, other than the obvious of the formations on Hispaniola.

 

[Mccoy]

Not sure of the Haitian soils or conditions, other than the obvious of the formations on Hispaniola.

But you know then as a direct experience that "the average structure there is little more than a house of cards".

What makes me wonder is the fact that the presidential palace and the Montana hotel have collapsed as well, two buildings which supposedly have been designed by large engineering firms...
From the pictures published in the internet, the president's palace shows smooth steel bars with inadequate reinforcing loops. So apparently that's not (only) inadequate surveillance during building.

Anyway, from an old and not too detailed geologic map of port au Prince it seems downtown and the harbour are all recent alluvial sediments, thus supporting the idea of possible massive liquefaction.

Some of the dwellers of the shanty towns have not been saved too, since a few landslides have dragged down the dwellings in the hillside.

When you speak of bad karma, mass bad karma for that part of the world dating back a few decades...

 

[dgillette]

From the pictures, I would be inclined to bet on liquefaction, although it's possible that it was a lateral spread in sensitive clay.

Attached photo was among some forwarded to me by Ahmed Elgamal at UC San Diego, who got them from...who got them from...?

DRG

 

[Ron]

McCoy...yes, the structures are weak by any standards. Construction quality in almost all the islands is poor unless done by foreign firms (mostly Brits and Yanks). Anything done locally is poor quality and oversight is almost nonexistent....and it takes forever!! I've had to subcontract work in the islands just because the local government required it....the result was it took 3 to 4 times longer to get the job done than if we'd done it ourselves.

I looked up some geology references for Hispaniola and found similar to yours, so liquefaction is likely a huge factor in all this.

When I worked for my former employer, we had offices in Florida and Puerto Rico, in addition to our other offices all over. We could see a difference in the work ethic starting with Miami and certainly in PR.

 

[JAE]

Now another quake - 5.8 in the Cayman Islands:

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/01/19/cayman.islands.earthquake/

 

[BigH]

Did anyone see that Danny Glover has commented that these earthquakes are happening because the Copenhagen Accord wasn't reached?? Mmmmmm Gather we had another minor one in Malili area - of which we at the site are close - I didn't feel it. Seems, as some have suggested, an increase in these - or we are simply more sensitive than before.

 

[dgillette]

Danny Glover and Pat Robertson should get together and work this out. The theological implications could be immense.

Many Jesuits have also been active in seismology:

http://www.seismosoc.org/inside/eastern-section/ES_Jesuits.php

Maybe they should be involved in the discussions also.