[Echoes]

Quote:

Earthquake shakes eastern Turkey; 38 dead Mar 8 01:38 AM US/Eastern ANKARA, Turkey (AP) - An official says the death toll in the strong earthquake that hit eastern Turkey has reached 38. Bekir Yanilmaz, the mayor of the nearby town of Kovancilar says 38 people have died in three villages in Elazig province. The quake struck Elazig at 4:32 a.m. (0232 GMT) Monday and was centered near the village of Basyurt, the Istanbul-based Kandilli Observatory. It was followed by some 20 aftershocks, the strongest measuring 4.1. The quake was felt in neighboring provinces of Tunceli, Bingol and Diyarbakir where residents fled to the streets in panic and spent the night outdoors.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php...show_article=1




Momma Nature clearly isn't happy.

[Echoes]

Story still unfolding:

Quote:

Istanbul, Turkey (CNN) -- A pre-dawn earthquake collapsed homes and killed at least 57 people in a mountainous region of southeastern Turkey on Monday, government officials said. About 71 others were injured when the magnitude-5.8 earthquake struck at 4:32 a.m., according to officials. The quake struck in Elazig province, with the village of Okcular the worst hit, according to Ozcan Yalcin, the press secretary for the province's governor. At least 57 people died, said Cemil Cicek , Turkey's deputy prime minister. Dozens of aftershocks, ranging up to magnitude 5.5, shook the region in the hours after the quake.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe...ex.html?hpt=T1

[trueshoelove2]

Oh noooo =( not another one...

[BigBlueSky]

Neighbouring countries knew there was an earthquake because there were feathers in the air. Get it? Earthquake...Turkey..Nevermind

[natalie78]

Mother nature has been on a roll lately, hasn't she?

[nycfashionlvr]

all I can say is 2012. I am ridiculously worried

[LADC_chick]

My heart goes out to the people who have lost family members in Haiti, Chile, Turkey, etc. However, I'm worried about all these recent earthquake reports only because they're starting to take on a sensationalistic tone. Earthquakes happen all the time in various parts of the world, but because of the devastation of Haiti and now Chile, I sense that any time there's an earthquake (something that naturally occurs in nature), the news is going to report in such a way that it comes off as an unnatural occurrence (if that makes sense).

It's like when Hurricane Katrina happened: the only weather type of news afterwards for months on end were primarily devoted to hurricanes in other parts of the world.

[lovemysavior]

It is the beginning to what is written.......

[bellafleur]

Originally Posted by LADC_chick

My heart goes out to the people who have lost family members in Haiti, Chile, Turkey, etc. However, I'm worried about all these recent earthquake reports only because they're starting to take on a sensationalistic tone. Earthquakes happen all the time in various parts of the world, but because of the devastation of Haiti and now Chile, I sense that any time there's an earthquake (something that naturally occurs in nature), the news is going to report in such a way that it comes off as an unnatural occurrence (if that makes sense). It's like when Hurricane Katrina happened: the only weather type of news afterwards for months on end were primarily devoted to hurricanes in other parts of the world.

Thank you for trying to be the voice of reason:) Though I would really like to see some research on how often hurricanes happen. Because it's kind of weird, one has to admit...

[bellafleur]

Ok, I did my own search, and this makes me feel a little better:

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/top...arthquakes.php

And if you click on the years at the top of this page, it shows how many significant earthquakes there have been in any given year, and it doesn't seem to be that different this year.

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eqinthenews/

[exotikittenx]

Thank you, bellafleur. I was wondering myself if it's just being sensationalized because of the major one in Haiti. It is terribly sad, though. My heart goes out to those people.
:(

[Necromancer]

Tectonic plates are constantly moving and quakes happen all the time. We get well over 200 earthquakes every year in Australia, luckily most of them occur in unpopulated areas. I hope people don't read too much into this latest quake. They're a perfectly natural occurance, though some are more deadly than others.

[Necromancer]

BTW, thanks for those links, bellafleur. It confirms what I was thinking.

[Jeannam2008]

Originally Posted by nycfashionlvr

all I can say is 2012. I am ridiculously worried

I am too. I think 2012. I believe in it, but then I don't want to b/c so many people say it's just some ridiculous story and it'll never happen. But I still believe in 2012. I think (I want to be able to get married and have kids and if 2012 is real and does happen I'll never get past enjoying my 22nd Birthday) haha ridiculous I am!

[redney]

Geoscientists are calling the recent "cluster" of major earthquakes coincidental.

http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_14641674

Recent spate of quakes chalked up to coincidence
By Suzanne Bohan
Contra Costa Times
Posted: 03/09/2010 02:17:04 PM PST
Updated: 03/09/2010 02:17:04 PM PST

Geologists have a logical term for the recent rash of devastating earthquakes around the world: They're called clusters, and scientists recognize that such groupings do occur.

This year's earthquake cluster started Jan. 12, with a magnitude-7 earthquake in Haiti. A similar-sized quake struck Japan on Feb. 26, followed the next day by a powerful 8.8-magnitude temblor rocking Chile. A 6.4-magnitude earthquake stuck Taiwan on March 4 and a 6.5-magnitude earthquake hit Indonesia the next day. Then on Monday, a 6.0-magnitude earthquake shook Turkey.

But despite the unnerving series of recent quakes, these aren't signs that more seismic havoc is imminent. Although large quakes are capable of triggering faraway earthquakes, the subsequent quakes are typically well under magnitude 4, geologists say. So when major earthquakes occur close in time but thousands of miles apart, it's chalked up to coincidence.

Stephen Kirby, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, compared it to a long series of coin tosses.

"Most geoscientists feel this is just a statistical variation that you would expect with a random process," Kirby said. "In other words, if you take a penny and you flip it, sometimes you'll get five heads in a row and sometimes you'll get five or six tails in a row. But averaged over time, you get 50-50 head and tails."

The seismic waves from a large earthquake rapidly diminish in strength over distances, and they've only been observed to cause tiny quakes in distant lands, explained David Hill, a retired scientist with the USGS.

In California, he said, the Chilean earthquake has triggered a number of small earthquakes in the southern end of the Sierra Nevada, in an area called the Coso Geothermal Field, as well as a number of roughly magnitude 1 earthquakes in the Geysers Geothermal Field above Calistoga. Most of these are too small to feel, although seismic monitoring equipment picks them up.

There's one scenario, however, in which a big quake can unleash another large one, say magnitude 7 or higher, but it's only in nearby areas through a process called a "stress transfer."

"When a large earthquake happens, it changes the stress field in the vicinity and in some cases can load an adjacent fault that hasn't slipped yet," Hill said. "And that's been documented a number of times around the world."

Four quakes that hit Argentina in the days after the Chilean temblor are "good candidates" for having been triggered by stress transfer, Kirby said.

Hill agreed that given what's known about earthquakes today, the recent set of large earthquakes is rightly ascribed to chance. But he doesn't unequivocally rule out any connection between large earthquakes close in time and great distances apart.

"It's not completely out of the question that it could indeed happen," he said. But for major shaking to trigger a large earthquake elsewhere on the globe would mean the stress buildup along the fault line of the second earthquake was already on the verge of breaking.

"(It) would have to be close to failure anyway," he said. "It's basically what some people refer to as a 'clock advance.' That stress has built up slowly over time, and some small change in stress happens and advances the time of the bigger earthquake."

But the existence of "clock advance" quakes remains in the realm of the hypothetical, as there's no way to measure if such a quake has ever occurred. And not every scientist agrees they are even plausible.

"Data trump everything," said Ross Stein, a geophysicist with the USGS. "But data that I've seen thus far do not support the idea of a large quake triggering another large earthquake around the globe."

This year's earthquake toll may appear higher than normal, experts note, since many struck in heavily populated regions, leading to massive casualties in some areas and billions of dollars in damage. But in fact, so far there's nothing unusual about the quake numbers, as on average every year there is one quake somewhere in the world that's at least magnitude 8. And on average every year there are 17 earthquakes between magnitude 7 and 7.9, but most typically receive little coverage because they occur undersea or in lightly populated areas.

"That's what counts, the occurrence of large, damaging earthquakes," Stein said.