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News in Science
Environment & Nature News - Asian quake even more
powerful - 31/03/2005
[This is the print version of story
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/enviro/EnviroRepublish_1335083.htm]
The December quake occurred off northwestern Sumatra, at the nexus where the
Indian plate of the Earths crust is sliding under a tongue-shaped sliver called the
Burma microplate.
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Environment & Nature News - Asian quake even more powerful - ... http://abc.net.au/cgi-bin/common/printfriendly.pl?/science/news/en...
But an evaluation of very low frequency data from seismograms shows that the
quake was in fact 9.3 magnitude.
As the Richter scale is logarithmic, the difference between 9.3 and 9.0 is 2.5 times,
the study says.
"This makes the Indonesian earthquake the second largest ever to be instrumentally
recorded."
Only one measured quake has been bigger: a 9.5 event that struck Chile in 1960. But
that quake caused far less damage when compared with 26 December, largely
because the grinding plates in east Asia meet at an unusually oblique angle, causing
the energy to propagate northwards along a weakened fault.
What happened on the ocean floor?
Research led by Chinese seismologist Ni Sidao of the University of Science and
Technology at Hefei, Anhui province, sheds dramatic light on what happened on the
floor of the eastern Indian Ocean.
Their computer model, also published in Nature, suggests that the quake delivered a
high-frequency shock that lasted a stunning 500 seconds, compared with 340 seconds
for the Chile event in 1960.
From Indonesia to just south of Myanmar, the ocean ruptured at 2.5 kilometres per
second in an arc measuring 1200 kilometres.
The rip occurred along the so-called Sunda megathrust, the great tectonic frontier
along which the Australian and Indian plates begin their descent beneath Southeast
Asia.
Stein and Okal also estimate a rupture of 1200 kilometres, and say that this figure
would explain why Sri Lanka and southern India were so badly hit by the tsunami.
The reason: the biggest waves that struck their shores came not from the quake site
off Sumatra, to the southeast, but from the thrust of the ocean floor to the east.
"Tsunami amplitudes are largest when perpendicular to the fault," Stein and Okal
note.
The pair estimate the rupture to be some 11 metres deep and 200 kilometres wide.
Although the bust occurred at vicious speed, its slip was insidiously slow, a
phenomenon that proved to be ideal conditions for a tsunami.
The March quake also occurred west of Sumatra, to the south of the December
disaster, on the same plate boundary.
Seismologists had said that the energy transmitted by the December quake added to
tension in this region and fuelled the likelihood of an imminent, very big shock.
There was no major tsunami in the March quake, probably because the shock was
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Environment & Nature News - Asian quake even more powerful - ... http://abc.net.au/cgi-bin/common/printfriendly.pl?/science/news/en...
Related Stories
Deep quake saves Asia from second tsunami, News in Science 30 Mar 2005
Repeat Indian Ocean quake likely study, News in Science 17 Mar 2005
Old records show tsunamis were common, News in Science 1 Feb 2005
3 of 3 04/01/05 11:05
The New York Times > AP > Science > Scientists Reexamine De... http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/science/AP-Tsunami-Earthquak...
1 of 3 04/01/05 10:10
The New York Times > AP > Science > Scientists Reexamine De... http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/science/AP-Tsunami-Earthquak...
2 of 3 04/01/05 10:10
The New York Times > AP > Science > Scientists Reexamine De... http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/science/AP-Tsunami-Earthquak...
USGS officials said magnitude 9.0 quakes are so rare that no others have been
measured using the same method and scientists dont know whether other giant
earthquakes behave the same way.
For example, Sipkin said other measurements show the magnitude 9.2 Alaska
earthquake in 1964 was larger than the Sumatra quake. But slow-slip
measurements did not exist then, and comparing the different data from the two
earthquakes now is like comparing apples and oranges, he said.
Changing the magnitude of the Sumatra earthquake to 9.3 would not only be
premature at this time, Sipkin said, but would place it in the wrong position
on the list of largest earthquakes.
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3 of 3 04/01/05 10:10
MSNBC - December quake was longest on record http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7338077/print/1/displaymode/1098/
MSNBC.com
Reuters
Updated: 5:27 p.m. ET March 30, 2005
LONDON - The earthquake that triggered the devastating Asian tsunami was the longest on
record extending over 750 miles (1,200 km) but poses little further immediate danger,
scientists said on Wednesday.
However, large earthquakes and possible giant tidal waves are a threat on the segments of
the tectonic plate boundary to the south, they wrote in the science journal Nature in papers
penned well before Mondays major quake in the danger zone.
The Dec. 26 subsea earthquake off northern Indonesia measuring 9.0 on the open ended
Richter scale triggered a tidal wave that swept across the Indian Ocean spreading death
and devastation from Sri Lanka to Thailand.
Three months after the disaster, nearly 300,000 people are still missing or known to be
dead, and more than one million are homeless.
The two groups of scientists working independently at Northwestern University in the United
States and the University of Science and Technology of China both reached the same
conclusions on the size of the rupture.
They said the size of the quake was far bigger than previously estimated and had the odd
characteristic of having had a long, slow slip in the northern end of the giant fault followed
by a sharp rapid move in the southern section.
"We determine the rupture length to be 1,200 km -- the longest ever recorded," wrote the
team from Anhui in China, noting that the quake lasted more than eight minutes at its peak
power.
The team from Illinois said the odd characteristics of the earthquake and its extent made a
repeat unlikely in the near future.
"Strain accumulated on the northern part of the rupture has been released. There is
therefore no immediate threat of an oceanwide tsunami being generated ... because such
earthquakes should be at least 400 years apart," they wrote.
"However, the danger of a large tsunami resulting from a great earthquake on segments to
the south remains," they added.
The article appeared just two days after the major earthquake measuring 8.7 struck some
200 km south of the epicenter of the December quake.
Although there was no repeat of the giant tsunami, the March 28 earthquake killed an
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MSNBC - December quake was longest on record http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7338077/print/1/displaymode/1098/
estimated 1,000 people and devastated coastal communities in northern Indonesia still
struggling to rebuild three months after the Boxing Day wave.
URL: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7338077/
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ScientificAmerican.com
Seth Stein and Emile A. Okal of Northwestern University analyzed the low-frequency seismological signal
that the December 26, 2004, quake generated. They determined that it was 2.5 times stronger than initial
estimates and measured 9.3 on the Richter scale. Scientists based the initial 9.0 magnitude estimate on
surface waves. The authors posit that slow slip between the plates that was not detectable in the surface
waves accounts for their larger measurement. A second analysis published in the same issue of Nature
indicates that the December earthquake also involved a longer section of the fault than previously
believed. Sidao Ni of the University of Science and Technology of China and colleagues determined that
the Sumatra-Andaman quake resulted in a rupture length of 1,200 kilometers--about twice as long as had
been inferred from analyses performed soon after the event.
Scientists will continue to try to piece together just how and why the earth moves below the Bay of Bengal
region. Kerry Sieh of the California Institute of Technology comments in an accompanying commentary
that "over the next year or two, figuring out what happened will be a showcase both of what modern
observations and analysis can do and of the multidisciplinary nature of modern earthquake science." -
-Sarah Graham
The Dec. 26 earthquake that caused the Indian Ocean killer tsunamis was at least twice as powerful as
originally thought, making it the second-biggest quake ever recorded, according to two U.S. researchers.
The quake ruptured the ocean floor northward from Sumatra along a line extending 1,200 kilometres --
twice as long as previously believed, according to a study by seismologists at Chicago's Northwestern
University. And they have assigned the temblor an intensity of magnitude-9.3 -- 2.5 times greater than
initial reports, which estimated it at approximately 9.0.
Their research, along with another study by Chinese scientists, appears in today's edition of the British
science journal Nature. They are among the first published analyses of the Sumatra quake, which
unleashed tsunamis killing an estimated 300,000 people.
Northwestern's Seth Stein and Emile Okal say their non-standard evaluations of extremely long-period, or
"slow-slip," seismic waves shows the devastating quake had a magnitude of 9.3. (Because the scale is
logarithmic, the increase represents a 2.5-times size difference.) Only one measured quake has been
bigger, a 9.5-magnitude whopper that hit Chile in 1960.
However, the U.S. Geological Survey, a world-leading authority on earthquakes, is waiting for an
agreement among scientists to emerge before making its own pronouncement on the magnitude of the
Boxing Day quake.
"The Stein and Okal results are using a non-standard technique. It doesn't mean they're wrong, but it is
non-standard," USGS geophysicist Stuart Sipkin cautioned in an interview. "It doesn't seem yet that
there's a consensus in the scientific community about what the result should be."
Dr. Sipkin also said it is difficult to compare today's earthquakes to "historical" ones, such as the one
measured in Chile, because the data were collected differently.
"We need to make sure that when we do that, we are comparing apples to apples," he said.
In the other Nature study, geophysicists at the University of Science and Technology at Hefei, China, also
concluded the rupture length was 1,200 kilometres, running from the coast of the Indonesian province of
Aceh to the Andaman Islands.
They also say the shaking lasted a remarkable 500 seconds, substantially longer than the 340-second
Chilean quake.
Dr. Stein and Dr. Okal estimate the rupture to be 11 metres deep and 200 kilometres wide and may
explain why Sri Lanka and India were so badly hit by the "excited" tsunamis. The biggest waves that hit
them came not from the quake site itself, to the southeast, but from the thrust of the ocean floor to the
east.
"Tsunami amplitudes are largest when perpendicular to the fault," they wrote.
The scientists determined that the enormous strain accumulated on the northern part of the rupture has
been released, saying there appears to be no immediate threat of an oceanwide tsunami on this segment
because such great earthquakes are typically at least 400 years apart.
But it's another story on the segments to the south, where the danger of a large tsunami remains.
Dr. Stein said in a telephone interview yesterday that this week's 8.7-magnitude earthquake off Sumatra is
consistent with his findings, although it did not result in a giant tsunami.
Other scientists say dangers lie in adjacent faults extending north to Myanmar, Bangladesh and India,
where hundreds of millions of people have little access to emergency communication and services.
Kerry Sieh, of the Tectonic Observatory at the California Institute of Technology, warns in the same issue
of Nature that since big earthquakes often occur in clusters, the time may be ripe for a rupture beneath the
Himalayas.
"Because many of the giant faults in the Aceh-Andaman neighbourhood have been dormant for a very
long time, it is quite plausible that the recent giant earthquake and tsunami may not be the only disastrous
21st-century manifestation of the Indian plate's unsteady tectonic journey northward," he said.
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