May 24, 2013 – Extremely Powerful Earthquakes Strike the Pacific Ring of Fire: Three earthquakes hit the “Ring of Fire,” picture above outlined in red. Two are slightly off the map and are shown by the red dash arrow. A 7.4 and 6.3 magnitude earthquakes pummeled Tonga on May 23rd. The first was a powerful 7.4 quake near Vaini, Tonga; which occurred at 5:19PM GMT. The second more moderate quake struck at 9:07PM GMT near Nuku’alofa, Tonga.
Update May 24, 2013 at 10:57AM PDT from the New York Times – Quake in Russia’s Far East Prompts Evacuations: An 8.3-magnitude earthquake struck Russia’s Far East on Friday, sending tremors that prompted evacuations as far away as Moscow, more than 4,000 miles to the west of the epicenter. The United States Geological Survey recorded the earthquake at 5:44 p.m. local time at a depth of approximately 373 miles below the Sea of Okhotsk, off the coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula. Russian news media reported that reverberations from the earthquake rattled furniture and sent books toppling off of bookshelves in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky on the Kamchatka Peninsula, and officials initially told residents on Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands to reach higher ground in case of a tsunami. Russia’s Emergency Ministry later lifted the tsunami warning, and said in a statement that no injuries had been reported. Tremors were felt in more than a dozen regions spanning Russia; in Moscow, local law enforcement officers evacuated 850 people from two apartment buildings after residents said the buildings were shaking.
Moving to the north, an 8.3 magnitude “monster quake” struck in the Sea of Okhotsk, Russia (see map and above update five minutes ago)
The strange thing about all these earthquakes was that they were all at extreme depth. The two in Tonga were between 154 and 171 kilometers (96 and 196 miles). The one near Russia in the north was at 608 kilometers (378 miles). This is a rare event and has not occurred in years. The fear here is that a major “adjustment” is forthcoming from the famous “Ring of Fire.”
Further, there have been an usual number of new volcanic eruptions near or on the Ring of Fire.
Could these events portend a serious quake and tsunami in along the coast of Oregon, Washington and British Columbia?
I do not know, however, these volcanic and earthquake event taken together, paint an ominous scenario of for the future.
The Master of Disaster
608 km is much much deeper than the thickness of an oceanic plate. What “plate” boundary movement could cause such a large release of energy AND a possible aftershock of 6.8?
Similarly i am puzzled by the depth of the quakes in Tonga.
This is rather odd. I was wondering the same thing as well. Perhaps something BIG is in the works as major plates shift deep in the earth. My money is on April, 2013 +/- three weeks.
My curiosity inspired a research binge;
The subducted pacific plate is over a 100 Ma old, highly distorted and at a steep angle of about 55 degrees in the southern part of the Kamchatka trench to around 35 degrees in the Northern region of the margin. The below paper estimates the maximum depth of seismicity is 500 m (oops, wrong) at 55 degrees north latitude. This is the latitude of the earthquake’s epicenter.
http://usuarios.geofisica.unam.mx/vladimir/papers_pdf/Kamch_JGR97.pdf
The magnitude of the quake is on the high side but not unusual for this margin;
“This deep section of the Pacific slab beneath the Sea of Okhotsk has hosted several large earthquakes in the past – four above M 6 within 200 km of the May 24 event since 1988. These included a M 7.7 earthquake in July 2008, 115 km to the southwest at a depth of 630 km, and a M 7.3 event in November of the same year, 95 km to the southeast at a depth of 490 km. Because of their great depths, none are known to have caused damage. Intermediate-depth (70-300 km) and deep-focus (depth > 300 km) earthquakes are distinguished from shallow earthquakes (0-70 km) by the nature of their tectonic setting, and are in general less hazardous than their shallow counterparts, though they may be felt at great distances from their epicenters. The Pacific slab in the region of the May 24 2013 earthquake is seismically active to depths of over 650 km. ”
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/usb000h4jh#summary
Some simple trig estimates the subducted plate at around 900 m long into the upper mantle and so this distorted lithospheric crust is breaking up. No wonder that so many volcanoes are active on the peninsula. A magnitude >9 will be required for part of the slab to break off and “float” towards the core…oh my goodness…that could perturb the Earth’s magnetic field, the rotational inertia, and a “splash” could encourage volcanism as well as ring the bell of other margins.
Not prepared to but any money down, but am willing to guess that the western pacific plates increasing movement must be stressing all the transform faults around the burning ring of fire…
oops, seemed too long so i checked my high school math;
650 km/sin 55 = 794 km
…still that is long hanging slab that has been quaking a lot recently: six significant EQ in 25 years!
Thank you, Kajajuk, for the extensive research job – very interesting.
I think we are building up to a very significant event.
Wfoster2011
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