Moon tied to earthquakes....??

[Outbackmanyep]

Hey all!
I seen that thread on the recent earthquake, i was wondering if anyone knew of a documentary i saw on the Discovery channel a couple of years ago about a scientist who said he was investigating how to get an early detection about earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and said that he found a connection between major earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and the lunar cycle.....i decided to have a look at some of the bigger eruptions and found the phase of the moon, i found that not all but most of the major volcanic eruptions occurred with a 4 day period either side of the full moon or new moon.
His argument was that the moons gravitational pull works on the magma under the earths crust much the same way as it affects the tides....combined with the gravitational alignment with the sun....
Seeing as though this earthquake today happened and looking at the moons phase its full.......coincidence?? MAYBE! I have no idea....but you would think the theory works , take Jupiters moon Io for instance.
When the Tsunami on December 26th, 2004 occurred off Thailand, which caused so much devastation, i looked at the moon phase for that event....
http://stardate.org/nightsky/moon/index.php?month=12&year=2004&css=moon.css&Submit=Go

I havent heard much of anything else from that documentary but it got me thinking......
Perhaps it somehow adds up to increasing earthquake and volcanic eruption awareness around this time...of course its not exact but its pretty close!

Does anyone remember seeing that documentary??
Whaddya think!?

Cheers!

[xelasnave]

As gravity rain passes thru the planet it loses energy that is evidenced by the heat build up we all know is down there:) ..they say that its there and I suspect it is;) .
Well gravity rain comes up quicker :) (seeking a simple escape path) when the Moon shields that side of the planet and with it has more chance of driving the hot stuff to the surface ..The hot stuff, fast bits, moves quicker and encounters more contact with gravity rain which in turn adds energy or heat or faster bits, so more energy is available to cause an erruption.:eyepop:
Dismiss this and you will never understand the process:lol: :lol: :lol: .
But actually I am not joking here. So all has a greater chance of being "pushed"to the surface:thumbsup: .
alex:) :) :)

[sheeny]

It makes some sense that tidal forces would produce additional stress that may trigger the quake. i.e. the crust is already stressed, and the tidal forces are just enough to set it off.

The maximum tidal effects are around full and new moon, when the sun and moon are aligned... did the doco mention new moon?

Sorry, I haven't seen the original documentary of which you speak.

Al.

[Outbackmanyep]

The doco never mentioned New Moon only the "lunar cycle", and i thought that a lunar cycle would be completed with every new moon, but it could mean every full moon....
My interpretation would be that the highest gravitational effects were noted during new moon and full moon phases....more so with full moon....when the Sun-Earth-Moon are in direct alignment.
I went here:
http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/PLATETEC/TOPTEN.HTM
to get dates, and then went here:
http://stardate.org/nightsky/moon/
to punch in corresponding dates and find the moon phase.
As i said before, not all the phases are corresponding with full or new moons but within a certain time period, many of them ,from memory, 3 or 4 days before and after the new and full moons.

EG: "greatest killer earthquakes" heading , scroll down to July 27th,1976....then type in date on the moon phase calculator...and it shows a new moon for that date.
May 31st,1970.....4 days before new moon....

Try right down the bottom of "Greatest killer volcanic eruptions" January 27th 1951....3 days past full moon.

There are inconsistencies, and i take it that "Scientifically" speaking many variables have to be taken into account, but nevertheless its pointing to a certain time around these two instances when there is a higher risk of an active volcano erupting, and earthquakes can pop up anywhere along a fault.....

Cheers!

[Outbackmanyep]

As far as i can remember it was on Discovery channel, possibly aired in 2005,
the fellow researching this is an astronomer, i think he was living in Hawaii, or he is a geologist turned astronomer.....mind you i have a vague recollection of the man himself and i could be totally out of whack ,but the theory he proposed is somewhat startling, and he even said that he couldnt understand why no scientist before him had researched this area.....i think he had a beard too...lol:)
I remember what he was on about but i forgot his name....:shrug:
Cheers!

[huckabuck]

hello outbackmanyep,

i saw that last week. i'll do some research this afternoon. should be able to locate it for you.

[xelasnave]

It would make sense that as the Moon causes the oceans to rise gravity may also effect the magma which is more liquid that solid.
One could imagine that the tidal effect may be little extra energy required to push or pull the magma further up the lava column.
It would be interesting to see the incidence of eruptions of volcanoes when related to a "king tide" which evidences a greater gravitational effect:shrug: .
Even when considering tidal effect upon the plates one would suspect that the additional tidal energy provided around the full Moon may be the point when the action starts:) . The straw that breaks the camels back as it were.
mmm a beard eh is the man to be trusted:whistle:
alex:) :) :)

[huckabuck]

hello outbackmanyep.
i believe this is the one your talking about

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/05/0523_050523_moonquake_2.html

[Outbackmanyep]

G'Day Huckabuck,
That sounds like the man!......like i said before, there are many variables which have to be taken into account to prove the theory, but you would think on face value its quite possibly correct and worth investigating.....of course other scientists would beg to differ, but there are scientists out there that are looking for gravity waves and yet none has been detected!
Percival Lowell thought martians carved canals on Mars and he was quite a brilliant astronomer!
So i guess anythings possible!:)

Cheers!

[Ric]

Hi OBMY, I was having a read of the link and as a geologist I found it a bit generalised and would have liked a bit of the theory behind it.
But it is not without some merit and I would like to hear more about the theory, sadly I have not seen the documentary.

Cheers

[Outbackmanyep]

Hi Ric,
I'll keep my eyes and ears out for that documentary, i only saw it once and it was quite well presented, im just a bit sad that Austar stopped showing it, certainly beat a lot of other doco's i see on there they keep repeating...
I'll keep you all posted if i find the doco....

PS....You said you are a geologist, do you happen to be part of any lapidary/fossicking clubs too?


Cheers!

[Ric]

Hi OBMY, I am not a member of any clubs. I do appreciate minerals in their natural form though and have bult up a great collection over the years.
I used to work in mineral exploration out West and North which gave me great opportunities to explore my favourite area of fossil fossicking.

Cheers

[Outbackmanyep]

Did anyone hear about that earthquake that happened in the Solomon Islands during the new moon just gone?? (17th April 2007.)

ANOTHER COINCIDENCE?????:shrug:

I think not.....

MORE PROOF!?

[Ric]

There was another one today in Indonesia (mag 6.3) along one of the major subduction zones of the Pacific ring of fire plate zone.
I subscribe to the USGS Earthquake alert emails which send out emails of any earthquakes greater than mag 4.5 it might be an interesting exercise to graph them for a few months to see if there is any trend in frequency or increase in magnitude at the times of a new or full moon.

Cheers

[xelasnave]

You could relate it to tide chart I would think.
A high tide in the area would relate to the Moon and Sun as well.
alex

[Ric]

A good point Alex

[xelasnave]

When you think about the proposition from the view of the weight of water lifted and how say that sort of release of "pressure" on a bit ready to go... I dont think it is unreasonable to see a connection... such that some serious data sorting would not be worthwhile if you were doing a study on Earthquakes.
alex

[Ric]

Hi Alex, the majority of earthquakes occour in a zone which is between 10 to 20 kilometres deep so there is already a massive weight of solid rock pushing down. Added to this the fact that the plates are moving constantly and the the back pressure is continuing to build it is conceivable that in the event of a high tide in that region would add extra weight to the sea bed floor.
I think that it would be seen as a contributing factor rather than a cause.

Cheers

[xelasnave]

Contributing only no doubt if at all, I meant the force given the effect on lifting the water must be considerable, but certaily evidence of a change in gravity conditions.. the straw that breaks the back maybe.
alex

[Ric]

Sorry Alex, a misinterpretation there. you are right the forces involved to lift such a volume of water are indeed massive.
Earthquake magnitudes are measured on a exponential scale so the jump from mag 1 to 2 can be a hundred fold release of energy and this only rises as the earthquakes rise in magnitude.
It is suggested that at approx 4.5 billion years old the Earth is old and settled but I think she is still quite young and still very dynamic. It's a bit off topic but the case of the super volcanos in America is a good example of how dynamic the Earth is, one eruption removed a few hundred kilometres of mountain range probably in a few minutes.
Nature should never be under estimated thats for sure.

Cheers

[DobDobDob]

Amen to that :thumbsup:

[GrahamL]

:confuse3: nah I can't buy it ..earth is 80 times larger than the moon by those facts stated there ?.. Shouldn't it be the other way around
in that the moon would be the shakey place to live ?

The tidal bulge also probably isn't much overall ?.. if the worlds oceans
cover 70 % of the surface area .. average 15 000 feet in depth
or around 1.4 billion cubic kms in volume .. a small gradual rise and fall
of a few feet across the whole of it each day is pretty sedate.

I'll go with ric on this one .. it is a dynamic rock we live on :P

[Outbackmanyep]

What i meant to emphasise was that the hardest thing for volcanologists to do is to predict when an active region could be active, when a smoking volcano might erupt, etc.....so around the times of the new and full moon you would think there would be an increase in the alertness for the scientists and emergency services to act.

There are moonquakes too which have been detected by the seismometers left by the apollo astronauts.......
As i have said before, this may not be the case with all eruptions/quakes etc.

I think i might keep a record of when these things occur and see what happens, could be quite surprising!

Cheers!

[Ric]

Hi OBMY, if you go to the United States Geological Survey (USGS) website there is an area where you can subscribe for earthquake alerts by email for any over mag 4.5 that occour. It is quite amazing the amount of earthquakes that happen.
So far there has been five since last Friday all over mag 5.0

Cheers

[Outbackmanyep]

Cheers Ric,
I just subscribed!

This'll be interesting!

[DobDobDob]

Me too, is it wrong to hope for an EQ just to see if the monitoring and notification works :rolleyes:

[Ric]

You wont have to wait too long Ron, depending on what time you subscribed you have probablr recieved notice of a mag 6 in the Sandwich Islands.
Thats 6 in the last 4 days.

[DobDobDob]

Well that's an understatement Ric, it's the next day now and I woke up to 5 different notifications. I think I might have to go back and turn the filter up a bit so that I only get bad ones :P

[Outbackmanyep]

I just got about 12 emails today from the USGS, i think 4 were in the Solomon Islands, most ranged from 3.8 to 6.0.....

Incredible!
ITS ALIIIIIIIIIVE!

[Outbackmanyep]

[quote=Ric;215488]You wont have to wait too long Ron, depending on what time you subscribed you have probablr recieved notice of a mag 6 in the Sandwich Islands.
Thats 6 in the last 4 days.[/quote/]

MMMMMMMMMMMMMM SAAANDWICH....

[DobDobDob]

Okay Homer :P

[DobDobDob]

I just went in and changed my profile to 6> Mag for both night and day notifications, this should filter out most of the minor ones. :P

[Ric]

I'm set to anything over 4.5 because that is what is usually classed as significant.
It certainly is an eyeopener as to what the earth is up to.

Cheers

[DobDobDob]

Ric, it's the next day and I never got one notification, so less than 6 on the first day I ended up getting about a dozen, the second day of greater than 6, I got zero.

I might back it down a little, can you tell me if you got any yesterday (the last 24 hours), thanks :P

[Ric]

Hi Ron, from memory I think there was one in the low 5's.
You will find that anything over 6 are more infrequent as they more devastating and under 4.5 will fill your inbox overnight.

Cheers

[Outbackmanyep]

I got more today!
I wonder if the moon is a reason why our planet hasnt died out yet,why its still active.....
Would you think Mars might still be active if it had a moon like ours? or is it because of other reasons?

Just a thoughtie....