Last week we played catch up on the happenings in regards with the revolts overseas, now this past Friday morning I woke up to the news that a massive earthquake and tsunami had hit Japan. Again, (like last week’s article) for those who read Her Campus™ more often than they are able to stay caught up with world news, I felt like this was something that we should talk about. Seriously devastating, the earthquake in Japan measured at a magnitude of 8.9 on the Richter scale. Now, that might not sound like that big of a number, but honestly it’s huge. When I woke up, I knew very little of the technicalities of earthquakes and tsunamis. I wanted to learn more though, so I spent the day doing some research and now I would like to share with you a little of what I learned. Just what does that big Richter scale number mean? How devastating was this earthquake and why should you even care? Today we are discussing, as simply as possible (because that’s the way I roll) the measurements of earthquakes, the power of this recent one and how all of this affects you.
When looking into the Richter scale and how they measure earthquakes I found the obvious information that the higher the number, the more powerful the earthquake, but it was interesting to note that according to earthquake.usgs.gov, for every whole number increase i.e. 5.0 compared to 6.0, it means the release “of about 31 times more energy”. To me that seems like a pretty weird way to measure earthquakes, but I’ve never claimed to be a mathematician or seismologists (a person who studies earthquakes) so who am I to question the logistics of science.
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According to cbsnews.com, this 8.9 Japanese earthquake ranks in as the fifth most powerful earthquake since 1952. It’s in the running with the 1960 Chilean 9.5 quake, a 9.2 quake in Alaska, a 9.1 in Sumatra, and is just barely beaten out by a 9.0 quake in Kamchatka, Japan. It even beats out the 2010 Haiti earthquake which was a mere 7.0. An assistant professor of geosciences at BSU, Mr. Kasper van Wijk, stated “This was about 300 times more energetic than the Haiti earthquake.” That helps to put it into perspective a little bit doesn’t it? Unlike the Haitian earthquake though, this most recent one caused a huge tsunami that caused massive destruction. Another interesting piece of information I found was about the “Ring of Fire”. Now I’m no Geology major, so please bear with my simple-minded explanation here, but thanks again to earthquakes.usgs.gov I’m able to plainly explain. The “Ring of Fire” sits atop the Pacific tectonic plate, which through the theory of Geology explains the interesting subject of continental drift (seriously, if any of this article peaks your curiosity, look into the idea of continental drift because I could read about that for hours). The world is covered in plates and the Pacific plate is continuously shoving itself against more solid plates which causes a lot of friction. This friction in turn causes earthquakes and it just so happens that Japan sits right on top of this dangerous zone, which explains why Japan now has two of the top five most powerful earthquakes. I could go on and on forever about earthquakes because through my research for this article I believe I have found a new passion, but I digress.
This earthquake caused a massive tsunami, whichthe National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is now calling the Honshu Tsunami. This tsunami is the news that woke me up at9:30 Friday morning and caused me to spend hours of the rest of my day trying to understand it all. Not to detract from the seriousness of it, but if you “Google” it you can find some really cool video of what the predicted route and speed of the tsunami waves were. The tsunami waves not only caused an insane whirlpool right off the coast of Japan, (which again, you can find some cool footage of) they traveled about 600 miles and affected all parts of the Pacific. Hawaii, up and down the west coast of the U.S., South America, and Australia were all hit with at least a little something, but here we sit tucked ever so gently in the mid-west where we don’t have to deal with these types of natural disasters, though an interesting thing to note is that, “earthquakes occur in the central portion of the United States too!” according to earthquake.usgs.gov The New Madrid fault is the primary source of Midwest earthquakes, but they are usually so small that we rarely feel them.
I’m gonna get serious on you for just a split second, because I don’t feel as though I can discuss this topic without getting into the whole “how you can help” thing. Though we don’t feel them we should remember that we here in Michigan are still affected by earthquakes and even by tsunamis, because we as a people are all affected by any and all natural disasters. We are a part of the human race and must remember that though from a distance the natural disasters can be both intriguing and saddening, they are devastating to many people and I urge you to do what you can to help those affected by any means. Sure there are the lucky few that are able to actually go to the locations of the devastation in order to help, but for the majority of us it seems as though we can’t really do anything. FALSE! There are actual legitimate organizations that you can donate money to in order help with the recovery effort (I’ve included a list of a few at the end of this article), and you can also donate food and clothing, but for those of us with not much money or material items to donate, the Red Cross can always use blood donations. Hopefully you’ve learned not only a little bit about how you can help after disasters such as this past week’s earthquake and tsunami, but I really hope that you’ve found these topics as interesting as I have, and perhaps you’ve developed a new found interest too.
Places to Donate
http://www.directrelief.org/
http://www.redcross.org/donate/donate.html
http://www.ifrc.org/en/get-involved/donate/donation/
https://www.habitat.org/cd/giving/one/donate.aspx?link=331&media=Google&lander=MNP&tg=tsunami&sourcecode=10w31&keyword=frontx&tgs=My8xMi8yMDExIDEwOjIzOjA4IEFN
Sources
http://www.ktvb.com/news/BSU-tracked-earthquake-vibrations-all-the-way-in-Boise-117814828.html
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/topics/richter.php
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/09/AR2010020904447.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/
Couric, Katie (Performer). (2011). Friday march 11th 2011 [Television series episode]. In (Executive producer), CBS Eveing News. New York: CBS