Page 6 - Subduction Zone News Today

Subducting. so this subduction zone here is going under. the part that is japan here that this plays on begins to curl in, it begins to get stresses on it. go ahead and hit play. the stresses here get pushed in, pushed in, pushed in, and all of a sudden, at the very last minute right before the earthquake, and there is the earthquake, it pops. and when it pops, it pops the land pass -- pushes up the water and the water gets pushed out as a tsunami. so the story, and youll find it on cnn.com, as ...

>> what happened in japan was a subduction zone earthquake which created a magnitude 8.9 event which propagated a lot of energy into the shore there. creating a tsunami that youve seen all sorts of information an videos on and provides a lot of damage onshore. >> is there any way, its like asking what caused this weather. what causes an earthquake? what is the most basic -- give me a basic primer on that. >> basically what you see happening here is that theres a subduction zone. weve got two pla...

See how devastating the effects of mother nature are. its just extraordinary to watch. you know, it reminds us in many ways of some of the scenes that we saw after hurricane katrina, when new orleans was swamped by water from the hurricane in the gulf. >> hadnt heard that analogy, but i absolutely understand why you make it. when it comes to predicting an earthquake, how accurate can scientists be on either location or magnitude? >> well, we know that there are a number of different faults in a ...

Lets check in with reynolds wolf with more on the science of tsunamis. reynolds? >> lets first talk about how they form. they can form in a variety of ways. they can form from an avalanche of rocks and soil just being a splash into water, they can form near an iceberg where a giant hunk of ice drops into water, too. but in this situation it was caused because of the location. you look at this google map and youll notice you have this, slightly smaller than the state of california, then youll not...

>> well, its a subduction zone. so its a place where two tectonic plates are coming together. you actually have like the pacific plate is actually subducting or going beneath the plate that japan is sitting on. these are areas in the earth where you build up a lot of stress because these plates are moving fast and eventually the fault cant take the stress and it breaks. they dont always break. obviously with this size. its not unprecedented. it would be about the fifth biggest earthquake that we...

Installati constellations in the stars we see patterns but dont think that holds up to statistical analysis. theres no reason for concern that the earthquake in japan would trigger a similar earthquake or earthquakes over in this area, but we were talking about the analogy between the earthquake in japan and what could happen in the u.s. the sub duction zone off alaska is similar to the one off japan and the one running from vancouver, canada to eureka in northern california. thats a subduction ...

Different topics. first to you, mr. vernon. what happened under the earth? has this got anything to do with what happened in new zealand and what might happen now and later. >> what happened in japan was a subduction zone earthquake which created a magnitude 8.9 event which propagated a lot of energy into the shore there. creating a tsunami that youve seen all sorts of information an videos on and provides a lot of damage onshore. >> is there any way, its like asking what caused this weather. wh...

>> what happened in japan was a sub duction zone earthquake which created a magnitude 8.9 event which propagated a lot of energy into the shore there. creating a tsunami that youve seen all sorts of information an videos on and provides a lot of damage onshore. >> is there any way, its like asking what caused this weather. what causes an earthquake? what is the most basic -- give me a basic primer on that. >> basically what you see happening here is that theres a subduction zone. weve got two pl...

Back towards japan, there was a 30-foot wave there somewhere. its called a subduction zone. the wave pushes down. this plate gets crusted together. and the two pieced of land are pushed together and one pops up. as it popped into the moisture here, it has to go somewhere and eventually pushes the water up, and the bubble of water is the tsunami. there was a lot of shabing and a lot of damage because of the shaking. but i would say 90% of the fatalities would be caused by that bubble or that wall...

They are all about the same, six feet right there. if you see one wave in california and say oh, its over. no its not. that wave is going to go out and another one is right behind it, 20 minutes later and going to go out and another one is behind it 20 minutes later. this is a long-term event, and people need to be literally away from the shore. theres nothing more to say than that. >> of course, you said something that caught our attention here, that this is a big deal, that might be in the lif...