Another item, regarding the tsunami.

The USAF just flew in some extra coolant.

Japan's Earthquake activity for the last week, according to USGS.

RED indicates what's occurred in the last hour.
BLUE indicates what's occurred in the last 24 hours.
YELLOW indicates what's occurred in the last week.

Size of the square indicates magnitude of the quake.

Well - check the source - they're coming fast n' furious over there right now.

Source.

The devastation this has caused must be nigh on incalcuable...you'd expect the death toll to have been much higher so at least the low figure is one kind of positive.

My boy has just been in touch, his ship is in the area but they are moving further away for added safety.

Thank God. Being shipboard out there is probably one of the safest places to be, provided he's far enough off shore.

:o i can't believe it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehVHCSaUl9A

The coolant system is still broken though, they're having to release some radioactive vapour (presumably steam) to ease the pressure on the reactor. It's still a bit dicey but I'm confident the Japanese will get it under control, they are quite good at this...although their reactors do leak from time to time and this is an old one...but I think the chances of a meltdown are slim.

Here's an interesting fact, the power of the earthquake has tilted the Earth on its axis by 25cm. Gives you an idea of the raw power behind this event and reminds you we are but little fleas on a very big dog.

It is like something out of a movie. But it ain't :cry:

All these people's lives destroyed. Everything they had, everything they saved. I honestly can't imagine how horrible that must be.

Kinda makes political bickering between people and countries seem a little petty. Let's hope we can work together to help. :yep:

Have we heard anything from China or Korea yet? With the shallow waters between them and Japan, I wonder if they are also getting hit?

really?? That's a lot! :o

Gotta a citation for that? This is something I would like to read about.

That's going to mess up some weather patterns. :nope:

One of the videos I just saw from Japan indicated a tsunami warning was issued for the Miyagi Prefecture of over 10m shortly after the quake.

10 f-ing meters.

Dear God.

http://www.earth-issues.com/2011/03/...ifted-10-cm-2/

This is the only one I can find so far, it came up on the BBCs live text, as it's a preliminary result I should have given it a disclaimer that it could be revised, but even so if this is accurate then it is a greater shift than caused by the Sumatran quake, and that was a 9.1. There was also an interesting snippet on the BBC reporting that showed a seismograph comparison to scale of the Japanese quake with the Haiti quake and the Christchurch quake as recorded by the seismograph at the British Geological Society or Survey (can't recall off hand which) at Edinburgh. Both Haiti and Christchurch were small fairly flat lines...Japans quake was a complete jagged mess, indicating, I do believe, some 2.1cm of earth movement in Edinburgh because of the quake in Japan. So that's a very strong P wave.

In other news, North-west Japan (Niigata province) has just been rocked by a 6.6 earthquake, no reports of damage yet, but this quake is in a new location to the aftershocks from the earlier quake of which, as you can see in the link provided earlier, there have been dozens. No new tsunami warning has been given.

In regards to other countries, China and Taiwan haven't been seriously affected, Hawaii got some large waves but nothing serious and was well forewarned, the US coast has taken some large-ish waves but again, there was a lot of warning it was coming and the worse damage is some sunken boats. The main concern is some of the small islands to the south-east of Japan, I don't know how they've been affected, but I think some ships are on their way to the area to check.

That is exactly what he told his sister on the internet.

The last year's earthquakes in Chile and Haiti did pretty much the same, 12 cm after Chile if I remember right. It most likely fixes by the time but yea, it may mean a bit warmer temperatures in some places depending on the axis..

Only thing I can do for the Japanese is to not sink any boats this weekend.. Luckily Japan won't end up to same condition as Haiti as they have resources for cleaning the mess.

EDIT: WoOT, nice posting speed out here, while I typed this 2 other replies were made :D

Indeed, but to put this into perspective a little bit, when the Boxing Day tsunami hit Aceh, the waves were recorded at their highest of 30m in some areas. It was an average of 24m when the waves actually came ashore.
10m is still terrible though, particularly in such a populated area.

I do ponder, and this is a thought for another time really, whether a tsunami hitting a populated area loses its energy faster and travels less distance than one hitting a non-populated area, due to the amount of debris it picks up and the mass of it increasing the energy required to push the wave forward. Something for the boffins to analyse I dare say.