February 8, 2013 – SANTA CRUZ, ISLS – The deadly 8.0 earthquake and tsunami that hit the Solomon Islands days ago, struck along a subduction zone, the same geologic setting responsible for the world’s most powerful earthquakes. In a subduction zone, two of Earth’s tectonic plates meet and one slides beneath the other into the mantle, the deeper layer beneath the crust. The Solomon Islands sits above the collision between the Australia and Pacific plates. In the region of the magnitude-8.0 earthquake, the Australia plates dives beneath the Pacific plate toward the east-northeast at a geologically speedy 3.7 inches (94 millimeters) per year, according to the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS). The earthquake hit at a depth of 17.8 miles (28.7 kilometers) and was the second largest earthquake in the Solomon Islands region in almost 40 years, IRIS said in a statement. Several aftershocks followed; the largest measuring magnitude 6.6, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The tsunami generated by the quake, reported as 3 feet (0.9 meters) in height, hit villages on Santa Cruz Island, destroying structures and homes, according to news reports. A tsunami watch was issued for Australia, Indonesia and New Zealand, but not for the rest of the Pacific, according to the West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center. Subduction zone quakes shove the seafloor in one sudden movement, which may generate a tsunami by pushing the ocean water above. However, depending on the depth and size of the earthquake, the actual seafloor surface may not move a significant amount, so a big earthquake doesn’t always produce a massive wave. For example, a magnitude-7.6 subduction zone earthquake in the Philippines in August 2012, which started deep in Earth’s crust, did not trigger a tsunami. There were dozens of earthquakes around the Solomon Islands in the month leading up to the massive 8.0 earthquake, the USGS reported. More than 40 magnitude-4.5 quakes shook the islands in the past week alone, and seven of those temblors were larger than a magnitude-6.0, the USGS said. –Discovery
Planet in crisis: “We are entering an era of increased planetary instability, brought on by a significant rise in the geothermal gradient, and subsequent magmatic fluid expansion within the planet’s interior. It will be a time, in which, we will see catastrophic and exponential increases in the number of natural disasters- most notably: earthquakes, storms, and volcanic eruptions. Yet, it is not the number of earthquakes that will strike the planet in the future that should most concern us. It will be the cluster eruption of mega-quakes, and their resonate aftermath, which will signal the planet has entered an intensified cataclysmic period of transition…these quakes will signal the secondary stage of Earth’s thermal acceleration, and should come to be viewed as signs of increasing disorder. Some of the quakes will strike as singular events; others will erupt in clusters, and some will strike some of the world’s most dangerous faults…this time will be marked by increased tectonic plate agitation, and an increase in the outbreak of the most powerful and destructive type of earthquakes, known as mega-thrust earthquakes.” –The Extinction Protocol, pp. 166,167,172 (2009)
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Crustal upheaval near Santa Cruz Islands signals planet undergoing massive change
