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Mind the Mine

   “If you didn’t grow it, you mined it,” I’ve heard said.  Many countries of the world heavily depend on mineral extraction to keep their economies afloat.  Brazil, the locale for this blog, is no exception.  Iron ore is Brazil’s leading export. Brazil ranks third in the world in this regard, just behind China and Australia.  Multinational Vale S.A. dominates Brazil’s diversified metal industry. Vale S.A. holds about half of Samarco S.A., an iron ore extraction company.

john's picture

Today's M7.5 Afghanistan Earthquake, October 26, 2015

The earthquake that struck Afghanistan today occurred in region of very high probability that has been present for well over a year.  A screenshot from the hazard viewer is below showing the main shock as a red teardrop.  The forecast was computed at 8:03 pm (Pacific Time) on Sunday, October 25, 2015.  The earthquake occurred about 6 hours later, at Monday October 26, 2015 at 02:09:32 Pacific Time. Information about the earthquake can be found here.

john's picture

The LA Story - October 24, 2015

If you live in Los Angeles, and you don't live in a cave, you've probably seen this story about an earthquake forecast for the Los Angeles area.  The controversial piece of the story is basically that the 99.9% probability computed by the methods on this web site is higher than the quoted probability of 85% probability computed by the US Geological Survey.  Both of these probabilities are for a circular region of radius 100 km around La Habra, California, over the time period of 3 years from about June 2

Steve's picture

Furious Fiords

Who doesn’t marvel at those wonderful travel pictures of the fiords of Norway?  Waterfalls, quaint houses perched on green slopes, snowy glaciers far above and likely, a cruise ship sailing far below.  

 One hesitates to sully this image with negative mentions, but steep-sided fiords do present a real and present danger in the form of rockfalls and rockfall-generated waves. “Fiord tsunami” I call the latter, however some find this liguistic mixture ludicrous as ‘lutefisk sushi’.

Steve's picture

Future Fuji

I recently read a web article entitled “Ten Major Natural Disasters Predicted in the Near Future” …

http://listverse.com/2015/05/25/10-major-natural-disasters-predicted-in-the-near-future/

…and I saw Japan’s Mt. Fuji listed as Number 6. 

john's picture

Earthquakes on the Newport Inglewood Fault

During the past few months, beginning with a magnitude 3.3 event on April 13, 2015, there have been 6 M>3 earthquakes on or near the Newport-Inglewood fault in the West Los Angeles area.  The latest of these events occurred on saturday June 6 just prior to 10 pm.  All of the events are relatively shallow, between 6 - 15 km.  It is noteworthy that this fault was responsible for the M6.4 Long Beach earthquakes on March 11, 1933. 

john's picture

Using the Hazard Viewer to Compute a Forecast

The Nepal earthquake struck in a region with poorly constructed buildings, susceptible to major damage and destruction.  Here I show an illustration of how to use the Hazards Viewer to obtain a forecast.

john's picture

Major Earthquake in Nepal, April 25, 2015 Magnitude 7.8

Much damage and destruction in Kathmandu and elsewhere, together with major loss of life.  More will be posted as time goes on.  Good pre-event forecast is difficult due to the poor station coverage in that area:

Steve's picture

Smoke Stream

Most people have heard of the Jet Stream -- those high-speed "rivers of air" several miles up in the sky.  True, our exposure to it amounts largely to seeing a long wavy arrow on the newspaper’s weather map or hearing it blamed by the lady on the Six O'clock News for extended wet or dry spells. Frequent airplane travelers might hold responsible the Jet Stream for taking longer to fly from New York to San Francisco than from San Francisco to New York.

Steve's picture

Muddy Waters

Do you know Muddy Waters?  He was a famous Blues Musician, largely of Chicago in the 1940’s and 1950’s, but finishing strong through the 1970’s.  “Hoochie Coochie Man” and “I’ve Got My Mojo Working” his hand penned. 

For today’s blog,  Muddy’s song  -- Rollin’ and Tumblin’ --  might best fit.

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