On the anniversary of its catastrophic 1985 earthquake, Mexico City has been hit by another powerful seismic event. No reports of casualties have been reported, but videos posted to social media suggest that damage is widespread.
The complexities of rare and extraordinary natural phenomena, like powerful earthquakes, come with mysteries not fully understood. One that seems to get quite a bit of attention from scientists and skeptics alike is earthquake lights, flashes or other glowing phenomena that occur before or during a quake.
The strongest earthquake to hit Mexico in a century has struck off the nation’s West Coast, shaking buildings for hundreds of miles and triggering tsunami warnings. At least 16 people have been killed, but officials are expecting the death toll to rise.
Last night, planet Earth rumbled in a place where it usually doesn’t rumble: Montana. But it also rumbled in the Philippines. Come to think of it, it rumbled in Vanuatu and Japan too. The Earth rumbles a lot.
Yesterday, the Los Angeles Times reported on a 6.8 earthquake that struck Santa Barbara at 4:51pm. Which might be surprising to the people of Santa Barbara who didn’t feel anything. The big problem with the story? The earthquake happened in 1925.
Four people are missing and nearly a dozen homes were flooded after a rare tsunami struck the west coast of Greenland on Saturday. Initial reports attributed the giant wave to a magnitude four earthquake, but speculation is emerging that the highly-localized tsunami was actually produced by a massive landslide.
The USGS has issued its now annual seismic-hazard forecast for the central and eastern United States. The updated maps, which highlight both natural and human-induced earthquakes, show that millions of Americans are likely to feel the earth shake beneath their feet over the next 12 months.
New Zealand’s Kaikoura Canyon—known for its abundant seabed life—is now an undersea wasteland following a series of earthquake-induced mudslides.
A little-known fault underneath the southern Californian city of Santa Barbara is capable of producing stronger shaking and more damage during an earthquake than previously thought, according to new research. Called the Ventura-Pitas Point Fault, it’s now thought to be capable of producing magnitude 8.0 earthquakes,…
As many as 30 guests are missing following an overnight avalanche at a hotel in Italy’s Gran Sasso mountain area. Poor weather conditions and the remote location of the hotel are making rescue efforts difficult.
More than 100 small earthquakes have struck the Southern California-Mexico border since Saturday. But while ‘quake swarm’ sounds like the term Morgan Freeman uses in the disaster movie right before Los Angeles cracks off into the ocean, real scientists say this particular event is nothing to worry about.
A few weeks ago, the US National Weather Service’s Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) released this soothing and terrifying animation of every earthquake it recorded from January 1, 2001 to December 31, 2015. Here’s my suggested backing track, and here’s how the video’s description says to read the map:
A magnitude 7.8 earthquake has rocked the Solomon Islands about 42 miles off the coast of Kirakira. A subsequent Tsunami watch was issued for Hawaii, but was canceled. Areas close to the quake are also on tsunami alerts.
A magnitude 6.5 earthquake struck Indonesia’s Aceh province earlier today, leaving 97 dead and hundreds injured. Though the quake did not trigger a tsunami, it triggered memories of the horrific 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake when more than 100,000 were killed in Aceh alone.
When a magnitude 6.9 earthquake rocked the Fukushima prefecture of Japan on Tuesday, fear swept the island nation that it could herald a repeat of the tsunami and nuclear disaster at Fukushima five years ago, both of which were caused by an enormous, magnitude 9.1 earthquake.
A tsunami warning has been issued in Japan’s Fukushima Prefecture and Miyagi Prefecture after a 7.4 magnitude quake struck off Honshu at 5:59am local time. The US Geological Survey had a preliminary magnitude of 7.3 but then downgraded it to 6.9. It has been revised yet again to 7.4.
A recent study found that California’s San Andreas Fault could actually rupture along its entire 800-mile length. It was previously believed that “The Big One” could only occur in confined segments, and this new information is now being used by insurers to make some unnerving predictions.
It’s generally believed that hydraulic fracturing is behind the recent spate of earthquakes in regions not usually associated with seismic activity, but the underlying processes are still poorly understood. New research from Canada strengthens the link between the two, showing how the controversial practice can…
Seismologists are warning that the latest earthquake to strike New Zealand could trigger other large earthquakes in the coming days and weeks, but sensationalistic claims of a devastating “mega-quake” are likely overblown.
A magnitude 5.0 earthquake rattled the Oklahoma prairie town of Cushing last night, damaging several buildings and threatening one of the world’s largest oil terminals. Earthquakes are now a disturbingly frequent phenomenon in the region, with all signs pointing to the practice of disposing oil and gas field…
