Large earthquake in Gulf of Mexico

[teach1st]

http://www.baynews9.com/content/74/2006/9/10/181623.html?title=Large%20earthquake%20in%20Gulf%20of%20Mexico

A large earthquake was registered in the Gulf of Mexico Sunday morning.

The National Earthquake Center confirmed an earthquake in the Gulf of Mexico just before 11 a.m. It was centered to the west of Ft. Myers and south of the Panhandle.

It registered a 5.8 magnitude, according to the U.S. Geological Survey web site.

[madfloridian]

1. They felt it in the studios of BayNews9 in St. Pete or Tampa.

We just heard them say it.

[teach1st]

2. I thought it was my hangover!

:)

[AndrewJacksonFaction]

5. Did you fell it?

Did you really feel it? I was sound asleep and felt nothing. BTW I am in Pinellas on an undisclosed beach. :)

[teach1st]

7. No, I didn't feel it.

I'm not even hung over.

[AndrewJacksonFaction]

21. Why you misleading me then? :)

Where are you located? I felt it. I was outside smoking some sticky icky and I thought, well ........

[teach1st]

22. I'm in Pinellas Park

It's always shaky here.

[HeeBGBz]

37. I'm in Biloxi. Can't say I felt anything.

Wish I'd been paying more attention.

[MidwestTransplant]

42. Didn't feel it AT ALL here in Chicago.

Humph!

[Viva_La_Revolution]

3. IRIS link...

http://www.iris.edu/seismon/

[HeeBGBz]

39. I should have felt that.

Sheesh!

[whistle]

4. Interesting that such an event has taken not 38 minutes ago...

...at the magnitude described <5.8> yet I sensed no disturbance of any kind in Orlando Florida. Are there reports of any tzunami waves or after shocks along the gulf coast shore of Florida?

[Eurobabe]

6. Geez, any tsunamis from this?

I've never heard of earthquakes in the Gulf.

How ironic that last week, somebody (Chevron) was yodel-ley-he-whoing about a huge oil find. WTF are they doing down there??

[stellanoir]

8. Gaia to Chevron. . .

"It is completely inadvisable to muck around with the extraction of the lubricant for my tectonic plates. . .Okay. . .? Aaand duly note the differing viscosity of water and oil."

[Ian David]

12. It's idiotic to think that drilling for oil causes earthquakes.

The oil industry causes global warming, not earthquakes.

It just makes conservationists look crazy or foolish to talk this earthquake nonsense.

[stellanoir]

14. Try telling that to a geologist

And whoever linked global warming to earthquakes. . .?

[Ian David]

16. Geologists agree that drilling for oil doesn't cause earthquakes. Period.

Yes, you'll find a few nuts to dissent-- but you'll also find some geologists who believe in Creationism.

[stellanoir]

19. I wasn't speaking of causality.

I was speaking of cushioning, lubrcation, and resulting severity of impact. The geologists I've spoken with don't believe in creationism either.

We can agree to disagree in regards to this matter. I implicitly trust my sources.

[laundry_queen]

32. Baloney.

And I'm not a nut.
I live in oil country. We get occasional tremors well known to be caused by drilling. A few years ago we had a 5.0 and it was all over the news how this was caused by the oil activity in the area. It's not some secret whacko thing, it's well known. Why do you think they now pump water down into wells as they extract the oil??

[NorthernSpy]

40. mining causes earthquakes of a particular type in South Africa...

... on a fairly regular basis.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200608220589.html

Last year, a mining-triggered earthquake in Stilfontein left gold mine workers trapped. One died and others were injured before they were finally rescued. The quake also caused partial building collapses and other damage in nearby towns.

It's a well-known phenomenon.

[SpiralHawk]

44. Luncheon meat has nothing to do with it. But when you suck up the oil

you leave voids.

Put down your luncheon meat now, and back away slowly.

The additives may well have fogged u0p your so-called "scientific deductions"

[OwnedByFerrets]

61. Except in Iraq, where they cant be bothered with the expense. nt

[Texifornia]

72. Huh?

Water is not injected into a hydrocarbon bearing formation for the purposes of earthquake prevention. It is done as a secondary recovery method. That is, it helps extract more oil. It has absolutely nothing to do with earthquake prevention.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

74. A 5.0 from oil drilling?

Laundry Queen, I suppose if pumping oil created a large cavity which collapsed, and you happened to be standing directly over it when it collapsed, that might feel like a 5.0 earthquake.

But that would not be a 5.0 earthquake.

[bigworld]

33. What _does_ happen in the space where the oil comes from?

Does anyone know? Does it create big voids in the ground, or do they replace the taken oil with water? Just curious.

[laundry_queen]

35. From what I understand

is that there are a couple things that can happen. Sometimes oil from deeper down will come up and fill a shallow well. But that process is usually very slow. Sometimes ground water will seep into the empty pockets (which is why toward the end of a well's cycle, the oil coming up has to often be treated because it can be laced with much water), and sometimes the oil companies pump water back into the space. They started doing that when excessive seismic activity was starting to be recorded in areas historically void of earthquakes.
I think it's naive for people to think you can extract billions of barrels of oil from beneath the earth and expect it to have NO influence on the surface.

[NotGivingUp]

70. I agree with you. The 'news' said we might have to expect sink holes,

etc. as the result of the earthquake.

[Ediacara]

49. Oil isn't in some lake underground

it's in the voids between grains of sand in sandstone. When the oil goes out, briney groundwater goes in. That's it. There's nothing missing, no great void.

[NorthernSpy]

56. but there must be significant changes in the fluid dynamics..

... of the reservoir, following the change in reservoir composition. As everyone knows, the physical properties of water and of crude oil differ. Is it really all that crazy to wonder whether such changes might be capable of triggering some forms of seismic activity?

That's all anyone is saying here, as far as I can see.

[crikkett]

58. Look up Tesla's earthquake machine.

Lots of things including the rhythmic motion of oil drills cause earthquakes.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

82. And if that doesn't do it for you...

Try UFOs.

[DeSwiss]

26. stellanoir, I agree

Gaia will have the last word.

Geologist, like all scientists base their "facts" on what they know, what they can see, what they can measure and predict. Ultimately, what their instruments tell them. But what if they don't have an instrument for this?

To say that oil extraction has "no bearing" on the movement of tectonic plates and the pressures that build up down there is not only arrogrant, its "unscientific" since its a position based in facts that are not in evidence. Its only based upon the facts THAT WE KNOW.

And remember, scientists laughed at Anton van Leeuwenhoek's "little bugs" under his microscope too. He thought they might carry disease and yet all the "scientists" KNEW that disease happened because of bad humors. "You just need a little bleeding buddy."

[Ediacara]

50. it doesn't have any bearing.

period. zero influence. none whatsoever.

[DeSwiss]

55. Prove it n/t

[Ediacara]

60. Prove what?

That something that has never happened has never happened? You're the one making the claim, you provide the data.

[DeSwiss]

63. The only claim I make...

...is that science (including engineers) don't know everything. That is all I said as you can see from what I posted. Obviously the extraction of oil as we do now is a phenomenon that has only been going on for an extremely short period of time from a geological standpoint.

I didn't advance the idea of whether or not oil extraction does or does not cause earthquakes or anything else. My support of the contention that Gaia will have the last word is a position that holds that whatever we do within the environment has an impact upon it, and often times consequences.

You stated: "it doesn't have any bearing. period. zero influence. none whatsoever." From my perspective, that's a position for you to prove, not me. But its impossible to do. Isn't it?

To say that oil drilling and its extraction from the earth has absolutely no bearing upon the tectonic plates and how internal pressures are distributed is based upon the limited knowledge we have at the present time. So unless you're saying that there is no more to be learned geologically speaking on this issue, then the door is still open as far as I'm concerned.

[Psephos]

66. Do you know how deep tectonic plate boundaries are?

Anywhere from 10 to 100 times deeper than the oil-bearing rock layers.

Plates move on white-hot, liquid rock. By the time any oil-bearing stratum descended deep enough to be in the tectonic zone, any petroleum load it bore would have long ago been cooked out of it.

Second question: do you know how big the plates are in relation to size of even a sizable oil field? We are talking multiple orders of magnitude in difference, minimum.

Not putting you down, just saying that with some more knowledge of deep geology, you'd see why this is a nonquestion. We have a lot more knowledge than you may realize.

:-)

Peace.

[DeSwiss]

68. Psephos, I'm not sure where it happened...

...but somehow and ode to Gaia (delivered semi-seriously I believe), became confused with the idea that oil extraction causes earthquakes due to shifts in the tectonic plates. I never said this. Neither did the poster I originally responded to. There may have others who did, but it wasn't us. (Read Stellanoir's and DeSwiss' posts, please)

Stellanoir (post 8) made a tongue-in-cheek remark about Chevron mucking about with Gaia's lubricant. They had recently reported a huge find of oil reserves in the Gulf of Mexico and therefore they became the object of her barb. Then, in response to another poster who called that comment "idiotic," she clarified by saying:

"I wasn't speaking of causality. I was speaking of cushioning, lubrication, and resulting severity of impact."

I simply concurred with her that we didn't know exactly what the true impact might be of the loss of this "cushion" since we've only been doing oil extraction and drilling on this scale for a short period of time in geological terms. And that there are no devices, or instruments or even data going back far enough to compare and measure in any meaningful way. If anyone even cares whether it does or doesn't have an impact, I haven't a clue.

As an aside to this point, I must add that the history of scientific inquiry is rife with the "later-learned" consequences of our progress and inventions. Regardless of what impact oil extraction has or doesn’t have on earthquakes, few could argue that the object of all this drilling (petroleum), does have a very real and negative impact on the air we breathe and water we drink -- and therefore, us. When I was a kid, from a truck they sprayed and fogged with DDT in our neighborhood and at the swimming pool to kill mosquitoes. Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" came shortly after.

My post in this thread wasn't related directly to the earthquake but in response to Stellnoir's comment about what is euphemistically referred to as "Gaia Revenge." As for what we know, while we may know some things about a lot of things, there's still much more that we don't know about everything, than what we do know.

As for me, I think I'll leave Gaia to defend herself. I think she can do a much better job than I ever could.

Peace :-)

[Ediacara]

79. Oil doesn't lubricate anything

Oil is trapped in the interstitial space between sand grains in sandstones in the relatively shallow areas of the crust. The "lubricant" of the plates is plasticity caused by intense heat and pressures at extreme depths. Oil extraction had nothing to do with this earthquake, and there is absolutely no data suggesting that it has anything to do with any earthquake ever recorded anywhere on earth. Ever.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

45. That's some mighty potent magic, eh.

A shallow test bore somehow causing an earthquake six miles below the surface. Indeed, very powerful magic.

[itsrobert]

9. 5.8?

That's a trembler.

[lennilenape]

18. earth quake

I don't know what it is, but Bush and company better be
removed soon.  Look at the man-made and natural disasters that
have taken place since they've been in charge.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

41. Bush does not control the lithosphere. n/t

[Bushies gotta go]

62. Nope, they don't, they just mismanage the aftermath. n/t

[stepnw1f]

78. In Fact, They are OUT OF CONTROL

That's why they should be removed. I understood what the poster was saying....

[stevedeshazer]

43. Welcome to DU!

:)

[kineneb]

53. Not that bad

...well, not from a native Californian's perspective, anyway. For us that is a mere "adjustment". Now around 6.5, Things Get A Lot More Interesting.

-went through the 7.0 Loma Prieta quake...that was more excitement than I needed.

[xchrom]

10. wow -- 5.8 -- that is an earthquake.

[teach1st]

11. No talk of tsunamis

At least not on Bay News 9.

[riverwalker]

13. now 6.0

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsus/Quakes/usslav.php

[ixion]

15. I'm in sarasota, and I didn't feel it

weird.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

17. The Observer News (Tampa Bay)

Breaking News: 5.8 Magnitude Earthquake In Gulf Of Mexico
By Mitch Traphagen [e-mail]
Sep 10, 2006, 11:24


The U.S. Geological Survey is reporting a 5.8 magnitude earthquake has struck in the Gulf of Mexico approximately 250 miles WSW of Ana Maria, Florida. Tremors were reportedly felt in the Tampa Bay Area. The actual quake occurred at the epicenter at approximately 10:56 a.m. Sunday morning.

Florida is not considered a high hazard for earthquakes and occurrences are rare. Among the worst reported were near St. Augustine in 1879 in which slight damage to structures occurred. Florida is also somewhat susceptible to large earthquakes occurring elsewhere.

More recently, small earthquakes were reported off Merritt Island in 1973 and in Daytona in 1975.
http://www.observernews.net/artman/publish/article_001724.shtml

[teach1st]

20. Seismicity of the central Gulf of Mexico

http://www.gsajournals.org/gsaonline/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1130%2F0091-7613(1982)10%3C103:SOTCGO%3E2.0.CO%3B2">Link

The Gulf of Mexico is nearly aseismic; no earthquake of Richter magnitude larger than 5.0 has been reported there in historic time. An unusual earthquake with a magnitude of about 5.0 did occur on July 24, 1978, and for this event it has been possible to obtain a focal mechanism and a reliable location, including an accurate depth of focus. The event occurred near the edge of the Mississippi Fan at a depth of 15 km, which is about the depth of the Moho. Its location and reverse-faulting focal mechanism suggest that it may be related to stresses associated with the downwarping of the lithosphere caused by the accumulation of sediments from the Mississippi River. A crude calculation confirms that the rate of accumulation of stress caused by downwarping is large enough to cause the observed seismicity. Other earthquakes that have occurred in the Gulf of Mexico are situated near the boundaries of distinct geologic regions, suggesting that these may represent areas of weakness in the crust.

[Joanne98]

25. New Madrid fault?

[teach1st]

27. I was wondering...

Since the rare 5.0 was suspected to be caused by sediment from the Mississippi, if this might not be something like that in the wake of Katrina.

Just wondering. I know nothing about this stuff.

[Gman]

46. That's a very good hypothesis

and very plausible according to the above info. But don't forget Rita which was almost as strong as Katrina and went in a hundred miles or so West of NOLA at the TX/LA border. Maybe Katrina alone would not have caused this, but a double whammy of Rita right behind Katrina by a couple of weeks may be found to be the cause.. I'm sure they may look for such a cause as well as others.

I know one thing, there was all kinds of stuff washing up on Padre Island/Corpus Christi beaches last fall. THey were finding empty barrels that at one time were full of toxic chemicals as well as other assorted scary stuff. Both Katrina and Rita just completely stirred up the Gulf.

[crikkett]

59. well that just cured me of crawfish and shrimp

"I know one thing, there was all kinds of stuff washing up on Padre Island/Corpus Christi beaches last fall. THey were finding empty barrels that at one time were full of toxic chemicals as well as other assorted scary stuff. Both Katrina and Rita just completely stirred up the Gulf."

Zowie!!

[Ediacara]

51. I suspect it's reactivation of ancient faults

either normal or transform faults from the Rifting of the Gulf of Mexico (Texas and Venezuela used to be adjacent during Pangean times), or later eplacement of the Carribean Plate and the Cuba-Hispaniola asland arc from the Pacific.

Check out this animation for what happened to Pangea 200Ma - Present http://www.scotese.com/pangeanim.htm

Check out this animation for what happened to the Carribean 100Ma - Present http://www.scotese.com/caribanim.htm

Those animations take FOREVER to load, so be patient.

[krispos42]

67. Didn't the dinosaur-killer hit there 65 million years ago?

Could it be aseismetic because the horrendous impact fused the entire gulf into a solid sheet of rock?

[Ediacara]

80. That hit in the Yucatan Penninsula

It didn't create a solid sheet of rock, at actually creates a lot of faulting. In any case, that's not in the same area (exactly) as this quake.

[krispos42]

81. Ah, okay. thanks. n/t

[HooptieWagon]

23. Felt nothing in St Pete. n/t

[soup]

34. Earthquake in the gulf, how very strange.

We were out mowing about that time. Didn't notice anything, either.

[teach1st]

24. "No significant tsunami threat"

Per Bay News 9

[FlaGranny]

28. Regarding tsunami, I believe that

the relatively shallow water in the gulf would work against any large tsunami.

[HooptieWagon]

29. No, shallow water would amplify a tsunami

When a tsunami is formed in deep water, it is only a few inches high - maybe a foot. A ship wouldn't even notice it. It is when the tsunami gets to shallow coastal waters it piles up, somewhat like a storm surge.
Not all undersea earthquakes cause tsunamis though, apparently this one didn't.

[laundry_queen]

38. It only amplifies a tsunami formed in deep water.

I think what is being said is that it's more difficult to FORM a tsunami in shallow water, there is less water to displace. In deep water there is more water to displace and as that tsunami that is a few inches high in deep water races towards the shore, the shallow water DOES amplify it. But there has to be that volume of water displaced to begin with, KWIM?

[FlaGranny]

75. Yes, that's exactly right. n/t

[merh]

47. The shallow waters of the Gulf are what caused the huge storm

surge of Katrina, all the waters being driven by the huge storm had no place to go but on to land, to destroy as they did.

From what I understand, most of Florida doesn't face the storm surge problems we face due to the shelf, their shallow waters drop off to deep waters rather quickly, where the Gulf has no real shelf, just gradual dissent into depth.

[FlaGranny]

76. That is correct about Katrina, but

I believe the mechanics are different for a storm surge than they are for a tsunami. A storm surge is caused by low pressure over the water, causing it to be sucked up, depending on how low the pressure is, and it is amplified by shallow water. A tsunami, on the other hand, is formed deep in the ocean and is only inches high. As it rushes into shallow water, the wave gets pushed up higher and higher because of the energy of the wave needing someplace to go, and that is up.

:-)

[merh]

77. That is basically how it worked with Katrina

the storm brought the waves with her, pushing all the water to the shore with nowhere to go but up, 30 to 35 foot storm surge (if not higher in some parts of Hancock County). It was if she had all the water gathered in her arms and pushed it at us as she came to shore.

[Gormy Cuss]

30. DUer in GA felt it

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x5611312

Very fortunate that it was offshore. A magnitude six in the Southeast could be devastating.

[nickyt]

31. Just got a message from SIL in Leesburg (FL) - she was in bed and

felt it, but her mom was in her car and felt nothing, and her neighbor was up and about and felt nothing...

[HeeBGBz]

36. In the Gulf

GULF OF MEXICO
Distances 402 km (250 miles) WSW (252°) from Anna Maria, FL
403 km (251 miles) WSW (252°) from Holmes Beach, FL
404 km (251 miles) WSW (253°) from Bradenton Beach, FL
418 km (260 miles) WSW (245°) from Clearwater, FL
529 km (329 miles) SE (139°) from New Orleans, LA

"And up from the ground comes a-bubblin crude..."

[peacebaby3]

48. We live right on the Gulf and didn't feel a thing. n/t

[truthisfreedom]

52. i wonder if this has anything to do with the new extra-deep drilling going

on down there?

[greccogirl]

54. It was felt here

in Georgia, according to the calls, but not by me.

[mithnanthy]

57. I didn't feel anything...

here in Ft. Myers.

[NotGivingUp]

65. seems strange that you didn't feel anything in ft. myers. i'm in largo

and i didn't feel anything either.

[daleo]

64. 5.8 isn't that big

But the damage can depend a lot on what kind of rock the earthquake occurs in, etc. I have heard that a relatively small earthquake in terms of energy release could be very damaging in the eastern part of North America compared to the west. The energy can be transmitted more efficiently in the east, compared to the west, where it is attenuated by the more fractured geology (e.g. cordillera).

I don't know about the Gulf of Mexico, though.

[HeeBGBz]

69. If this was 6.0, why no aftershocks?

I thought all fairly large earthquakes came with aftershocks.

http://folkworm.ceri.memphis.edu/recenteqs/Quakes/quakes0.html

[NotGivingUp]

71. I can't help be but suspicious of the whole thing...it's the same area

as the new drilling.

[Catherine Vincent]

73. Any news from the cruise ships?