BajaNomad

6.0 Earthquake near La Paz 8 October 2012

bryanmckenzie - 10-8-2012 at 05:34 AM

Yet another quake along the undersea fault line in the Sea or Cortez.

1400 pixel image here



Hour-long VIDEO located here. Note that HULU does insert an occasional brief commercial advertisement. BELOW animated GIF's are big and may take a moment to load.

Future Movement



Past Movement



And for those of you that think earthquakes are sporadic events, here is a snapshot of a typical week's worth of shakers, albeit most are small and not felt.

West coast earthquakes this past week.

1400 pixel image here




[Edited on 2012-10-8 by bryanmckenzie]

Feathers - 10-8-2012 at 07:28 AM

Interesting!

BajaBlanca - 10-8-2012 at 07:34 AM

Interesting that altho there are quite a few movements on the border between US and Mexico, there are none shown in Baja itself.

Thank goodness.

oladulce - 10-8-2012 at 10:04 AM

Those gif's of the peninsula movement are really cool. Can I find enlarged version of those somewhere Bryan? Mesmerizing- I notice something new every time I watch them and I'm not getting anything done do far this morning!

Did you notice the big collison with the peninsula and mainland around Los Mochis on the "Past" gif? You can see Baja slide under mainland and then Pt Chivato and B.Concepcion emerge as the Sea opens up again.

Did this collison cause the Tres Virgenes to form and stimulate all the volcanic activity in our area or did the volcanism occur while Baja was still attached to the mainland?
It looks like the Northern Sea of Cortez was cut off from the south when the land masses were attached?
So many questions that my poor husb doesn't have the answers to :spingrin:

bryanmckenzie - 10-10-2012 at 01:27 PM

Hi Blanca,

That's because the Baja Peninsula moves as "one piece"; essentially everything above water (and some below water) move on the same tectonic plate. You're right ... thank goodness.

PS - the Salton Sea most likely will, in the future, connect with the Sea of Cortez; see also Lake Cahuilla "... the delta had reached the western shore of the Gulf of California (the Sea of Cortez) creating a massive dam which excluded the sea from the northern reaches of the Gulf. Meandering at random across the ever-growing fan-shaped mass, the river changed its course constantly."
Quote:
Originally posted by BajaBlanca
Interesting that altho there are quite a few movements on the border between US and Mexico, there are none shown in Baja itself.

Thank goodness.

bryanmckenzie - 10-10-2012 at 01:41 PM

Hi Oladulce,

Tectonics/volcanology/geography fascinate me when combined with history, culture & linguistics (ugh, way too much brain-food). It's really remarkable how the history of this one small place on the globe fascinate each of us.

Here is the hour-long VIDEO located here. Note that HULU does insert an occasional brief commercial advertisement. And YES, I did notice the individual collision points. Google earth does a fairly decent job at representing the world's tectonic plates (+/-), obviously obtaining the data from other professional sources. And when you step back (up) and view our little round orb from above, it's easy to see where we are going (geographically) when you see where we have been (geographically).

Now throw in sea level rise & fall (as the third dimension) and you can see how islands come and go; coastlines move back and forth; great migrations occur; isolated peoples/flora/fauna develop unique and interesting characteristics (how do we spell Boojum?).

Lastly, are you familar with the Hawaiian Islands chain. How they move over a "hot spot" on the earth? this includes atolls, Midway Island, etc towards the west and on up to the Aleution islands. I'm not the expert, but I suspect something similar WAS happening under Baja as she migrates northwest; a hot spot under the Tres Virgenes? As I recall the 3V are actually now considered extinct?

Thanks for sharing. I love good intelligent conversation and dialog.

-Bryan
Quote:
Originally posted by oladulce
Those gif's of the peninsula movement are really cool. Can I find enlarged version of those somewhere Bryan? Mesmerizing- I notice something new every time I watch them and I'm not getting anything done do far this morning!

Did you notice the big collison with the peninsula and mainland around Los Mochis on the "Past" gif? You can see Baja slide under mainland and then Pt Chivato and B.Concepcion emerge as the Sea opens up again.

Did this collison cause the Tres Virgenes to form and stimulate all the volcanic activity in our area or did the volcanism occur while Baja was still attached to the mainland?
It looks like the Northern Sea of Cortez was cut off from the south when the land masses were attached?
So many questions that my poor husb doesn't have the answers to :spingrin: