PLANETARY TREMORS: Major Global Seismic Uptick As The Celestial Black Event Nears - Earthquake Swarm, Including Magnitude 4.0, Shakes East Bay Cities In California!

A swarm of quakes, one measuring 4.0, struck the East Bay.

May 3, 2015 - CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES - A string of moderate earthquakes has rattled the East Bay Sunday, shaking buildings. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.

The U.S. Geological Survey says an earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 4.0 hit at 2:13 p.m. Sunday. It was centered a mile south of Concord, along the Concord fault.

Three smaller quakes shook the area in the moments before and after the larger one.  A magnitude 2.5 earthquake hit at 2:01 p.m., followed by the 4.0 at 2:13, and a 2.7 magnitude quake at 2:14 p.m.  A magnitude 2.4 shook the area again at 2:28 p.m.  A magnitude 1.6 hit at 2:56 p.m.

The earthquakes struck at a depth of 8 to 9 miles.

Thousands of Bay Area residents reported feeling the shaking on the USGS Did You Feel It site, and on social media sites like Twitter.

Irish Girl tweeted, “Nothing like an Earthquake to shake up a lazy Sunday!”

Yo~ongie tweeted, “@BamBam1A did you feel the earthquake? Welcome to the state of Earthquakes.”

In Southern California, a magnitude of 3.9 hit the Los Angeles area at 4:07 a.m. Sunday. That quake was centered a mile northwest of the View Park-Windsor Hills neighborhood, just north of the cities of Inglewood and Culver City.  A magnitude-3.5 earthquake hit that same area on April 12.

Multiple earthquakes struck the East Bay near Concord on Sunday. (cbsSF)

The Los Angeles quake struck while many residents were sleeping, and the timing of the Bay Area quakes Sunday was not lost on social media users.

Zachary Burkett tweeted, “It was nice of the northern California earthquake to show up in the mid afternoon instead of the stupid 4 AM jolt down here this morning.”

The Los Angeles Fire Department said in a statement early Sunday that it briefly went into “earthquake mode.” The alert was lifted after fire officials surveyed more than 470 square miles in the Los Angeles area and conducted safety checks.

Strong earthquakes with an epicenter off the coast can trigger tsunamis, depending on the size and type of the fault movement. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center tracks earthquake data for the West Coast. - CBS.

Tectonic Summary

Concord-Green Valley Fault

The Concord-Green Valley Fault is mostly a right-lateral strike-slip fault with up to approximately 4 mm/yr (1/6 inch/year) of creep. The Concord Fault lies to the south of the Green Valley Fault. The total slip rate on the Concord Fault segment is 4 mm/yr (1/6 inch/year) and on the Green Valley Fault segment is about 5 mm/yr (1/5 inches/yr).

The Concord Fault maybe connected to the Greenville Fault through a complex set of faults under Mount Diablo, including the Mount Diablo Thrust. The Concord Fault may also be connected to the northern Calaveras Fault through a complex set of faults south of Walnut Creek. The Green Valley Fault is a direct continuation of the Concord Fault north of Carquinez Straight. The northern end of the Green Valley Fault is not well defined at the surface or from seismicity.

At present, there is little information on the date of the last surface-rupturing event on the Concord-Green Valley Fault. The current best estimate is that the last large earthquake on this fault occurred between 200 to 500 years ago.

The 2003 Working Group for California Earthquake Probability assigned a 4% probability that the Concord-Green Valley Fault system would produce a magnitude 6.7 or larger earthquake in the next 30 years.

For More Information

• Additional earthquake information for California

- USGS.

PLANETARY TREMORS: 3.2 Magnitude Earthquake Rattles Northern Texas!

A 3.2 magnitude earthquake struck near Las Colinas in Irving on May 3, 2015. © WFAA

May 3, 2015 - TEXAS, UNITED STATES - The WFAA newsroom received multiple reports of an earthquake in Irving and Northwest Dallas on Sunday morning shortly after 10 o'clock.

The U.S. Geological Survey confirmed the tremor at 10:11 a.m. and initially measured it as a magnitude 3.1, but later revised the intensity to 3.2.

"We felt it in the middle of 9:30 mass at Christ the King Church in Dallas," Joyce Aldaba said.

Its epicenter was just southwest of the intersection of Highway 114 and Rochelle Boulevard in Northwest Dallas.

"My apartment just shook," tweeted WFAA anchor Marcus Moore. "Not fun!"

WFAA's Facebook page was immediately inundated with comments, like this one from Bruce Crone: "Man, did I feel that one!!! Seems like the biggest one that I have felt!!!!"

The strongest recent quake recorded in North Texas since 2010 was measured at 3.6 magnitude on January 7. There have been four earthquakes from 3.3 to 3.5 magnitude in the same area since 2012, and more than 60 quakes measured since 2010.

USGS shakemap intensity

But Sunday's tremor clearly raised concerns for a lot of people.

"MacArthur and 183. Apartments shook hard!" wrote Samantha Guzman on the WFAA Facebook page.

Llaloha Lennick said she felt it in Northwest Dallas near Love Field.

"Story and Walnut Hill, lasted a few seconds, very strong!" Taylor Amanda Dorris wrote.

Niki McClure said she was at David McDavid Honda in Irving. "Biggest one I've felt yet," she wrote. "Feels like a big truck backed into the building."

Tonya Parker Wyatt at MacArthur Boulevard and Shady Grove Road had a similar assessment: "Felt like a car went through our apartment building, and the windows rattled," she wrote.

Other commenters said they could feel the earth move in East Dallas, Euless, Arlington, Carrollton, Farmers Branch and Fort Worth. Several Facebook posters worried about possible damage to their home foundation, but there were no immediate reports of structural damage or injuries.

Last month, an SMU study said drilling activities were the likely cause of a swarm of recent earthquakes in the Azle area. The cause of the quakes in the Irving-Dallas area remains under investigation. - WFAA.

Tectonic Summary - Earthquakes in the Stable Continental Region

Natural Occurring Earthquake Activity

Most of North America east of the Rocky Mountains has infrequent earthquakes. Here and there earthquakes are more numerous, for example in the New Madrid seismic zone centered on southeastern Missouri, in the Charlevoix-Kamouraska seismic zone of eastern Quebec, in New England, in the New York - Philadelphia - Wilmington urban corridor, and elsewhere. However, most of the enormous region from the Rockies to the Atlantic can go years without an earthquake large enough to be felt, and several U.S. states have never reported a damaging earthquake.

Earthquakes east of the Rocky Mountains, although less frequent than in the West, are typically felt over a much broader region than earthquakes of similar magnitude in the west. East of the Rockies, an earthquake can be felt over an area more than ten times larger than a similar magnitude earthquake on the west coast. It would not be unusual for a magnitude 4.0 earthquake in eastern or central North America to be felt by a significant percentage of the population in many communities more than 100 km (60 mi) from its source. A magnitude 5.5 earthquake in eastern or central North America might be felt by much of the population out to more than 500 km (300 mi) from its source. Earthquakes east of the Rockies that are centered in populated areas and large enough to cause damage are, similarly, likely to cause damage out to greater distances than earthquakes of the same magnitude centered in western North America.

Most earthquakes in North America east of the Rockies occur as faulting within bedrock, usually miles deep. Few earthquakes east of the Rockies, however, have been definitely linked to mapped geologic faults, in contrast to the situation at plate boundaries such as California's San Andreas fault system, where scientists can commonly use geologic evidence to identify a fault that has produced a large earthquake and that is likely to produce large future earthquakes. Scientists who study eastern and central North America earthquakes often work from the hypothesis that modern earthquakes occur as the result of slip on preexisting faults that were formed in earlier geologic eras and that have been reactivated under the current stress conditions. The bedrock of Eastern North America is, however, laced with faults that were active in earlier geologic eras, and few of these faults are known to have been active in the current geologic era. In most areas east of the Rockies, the likelihood of future damaging earthquakes is currently estimated from the frequencies and sizes of instrumentally recorded earthquakes or earthquakes documented in historical records.

Induced Seismicity

As is the case elsewhere in the world, there is evidence that some central and eastern North America earthquakes have been triggered or caused by human activities that have altered the stress conditions in earth's crust sufficiently to induce faulting. Activities that have induced felt earthquakes in some geologic environments have included impoundment of water behind dams, injection of fluid into the earth's crust, extraction of fluid or gas, and removal of rock in mining or quarrying operations. In much of eastern and central North America, the number of earthquakes suspected of having been induced is much smaller than the number of natural earthquakes, but in some regions, such as the south-central states of the U.S., a significant majority of recent earthquakes are thought by many seismologists to have been human-induced. Even within areas with many human-induced earthquakes, however, the activity that seems to induce seismicity at one location may be taking place at many other locations without inducing felt earthquakes. In addition, regions with frequent induced earthquakes may also be subject to damaging earthquakes that would have occurred independently of human activity. Making a strong scientific case for a causative link between a particular human activity and a particular sequence of earthquakes typically involves special studies devoted specifically to the question. Such investigations usually address the process by which the suspected triggering activity might have significantly altered stresses in the bedrock at the earthquake source, and they commonly address the ways in which the characteristics of the suspected human-triggered earthquakes differ from the characteristics of natural earthquakes in the region.

For More Information

• Additional earthquake information for Texas

- USGS.

MONUMENTAL EARTH CHANGES: Geological Upheaval - Scientists Says That Mount Everest Shrunk About 2.8 Centimeters After Nepal Earthquake; Nepal Region Lifted About 1 Meter!

Mount Everest (C), the world highest peak, and other peaks of the Himalayan range. © Reuters/Tim Chong

May 3, 2015 - NEPAL REGION - The deadly quake in Nepal not only devastated the country killing thousands but also changed its landscape.

Mount Everest shrank a little bit after the disaster, satellite data shows.

According to Europe's Sentinel-1A radar satellite, which passed over the affected area on Wednesday, a day after the 7.8-magnitude quake, Earth's highest mountain is now 2.8 centimeters smaller than it used to be, reports LiveScience.

The lowering is explained by a relief of strain in the Earth's crust, it said citing UNAVCO, a nonprofit geoscience research consortium.

At the same time a region about 120 kilometers long and 50 kilometers wide near Nepal's capital Kathmandu lifted about 1 meter, which partially explains the extensive damage the city suffered.

The uplift peaked just 17 kilometers from the city.

The satellite data is still raw and will be analyzed by teams of scientists over the next few weeks.

Roger Bilham, a professor in geological sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder, told the Huffington Post that the shrinking of Mount Everest is probably just about one or two millimeters.

The April 25 quake struck 83 kilometers northwest of Kathmandu at a depth of 15 kilometers.

As of Sunday, rescue authorities say there is no hope of recovering anyone alive from under the rubble.

The death toll has passed the 7,000 mark. - RT.

GEOLOGICAL UPHEAVALS: Severe Rainfall Causes Massive Sinkhole In West Sydney, Australia - Threatens Apartment Blocks!

© Gordon McComskie

May 3, 2015 - SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA - Dozens of residents have spent the night away from their homes after fears of a building collapse in Sydney's west.

About 60 people were evacuated from three apartment blocks in Harris Park on Saturday evening after heavy rain damaged a nearby construction site at Parkes Street.

NSW SES media spokesman Todd Burns said the walls of a construction pit had started to crumble after being softened by rain.

Amid concerns the apartment buildings either side might give way, residents spent the night with family and friends and had not been allowed to return on Sunday morning.

Police said initial inquiries indicated that severe weather conditions had caused "excessive soil erosion and affected the structural integrity of the site".

It is not known when the buildings will be deemed safe as investigations involving the site developer, engineers, geologists and gas and electrical companies continue.

 

© Gordon McComskie

The job was one of more than 1000 the SES had responded to since 7pm on Thursday as wild weather hit Queensland and New South Wales, fatally sweeping three cars off the road north of Brisbane and killing a six-year-old boy at South Ballina.

More than 200 calls for help were made to the SES overnight, with Manly particularly hard hit in the Sydney metropolitan area.

Mr Burns said there were 11 flood rescues overnight mostly occurring in the Coffs Harbour region.

"We've still got people trying to drive through flood waters and getting stuck. It's crazy people are dying by doing this and people still keep trying," he said.

The weather was expected to ease on Sunday and clear moving into the week, with tops of 28 degrees for flood-affected areas in the north, a meteorologist for Fairfax Media-owned Weatherzone said. - Sydney Morning Herald.

ICE AGE NOW: Global Food Crisis - New Cold Climate To Devastate Gobal Agriculture Within A Decade!

Crops damaged by snow.

May 3, 2015 - EARTH - The Space and Science Research Corporation (SSRC) announces today that the predicted new cold climate will soon begin to end the historic era of growth in US and global agricultural output that began after the end of World War II.

Specifically, as a result of recent events on the Sun and changes in the Earth's climate, the SSRC again warns that record crop yields and volume in the US and Canadian corn, wheat, and soybean belts are about to end. The SSRC expects the first substantial damage could be observed at any time but certainly within the next ten years.

This new announcement is based on a well researched set of new climate trends of oceanic and atmospheric temperatures, and solar activity.

The SSRC believes as long as the Sun continues its solar hibernation (a once every 206 year cold climate event) that we are on the precipice of a long term drop in global temperatures. It is entirely possible that the decades-long period of record global agricultural output that our world has enjoyed will soon be over, perhaps for many decades.

This ominous prediction is accentuated by the fact that governments worldwide and their agricultural corporations, systems, and farmers, are preparing for more global warming and doing nothing to adapt to the ongoing transition to a new potentially dangerous cold climate.

According to SSRC President Mr. John L. Casey, "The era of bumper crops that the US and Canadian breadbasket has been delivering for decades, is about to come to an end. The production levels seen in recent years are unsustainable in view of the dramatic decline in temperatures we are expected to see.

Unfortunately, the world's agricultural industry and our fellow citizens are totally unprepared for the new cold climate."

The rationale for the SSRC prediction of devastation to global agriculture within ten years is available for download from the press release page of the web site for the SSRC at www.spaceandscience.net. - Space and Science.

PLANETARY TREMORS: Shallow Magnitude 3.9 Earthquake Reported In Los Angeles Area!

USGS earthquake location map.

May 3, 2015 - CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES - A shallow magnitude 3.9 earthquake was reported Sunday morning one mile from View Park-Windsor Hills, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The temblor occurred at 4:07 a.m. PDT at a depth of 5.6 miles.

The quake was classified by the USGS as "light" but was felt over a wide area of the L.A. basin. The Los Angeles Fire Department said it had received no reports of damage.

A 3.5 quake rattled the same general area on April 12. Both quakes were centered on the Baldwin Hills/Inglewood border. The Newport-Inglewood fault runs along that area.

USGS shakemap intensity.

In the aftermath of that quake, some residents asked whether oil production in the area might have been a factor. But Caltech scientist Lucy Jones wrote on Twitter that it was unlikely because the depth of the quake was so far below oil production facilities.

According to the USGS' "Did You Feel It" survey, the quake was felt over a wide area of the Los Angeles basin as well as areas to the east.

According to the USGS, the epicenter was two miles from Inglewood, two miles from Culver City and four miles from Lennox.

In the last 10 days, there has been one earthquake of magnitude 3.0 or greater centered nearby. - LA Times.

ICE AGE NOW: Heavy Snowfall In The Irkutsk Region Of Russia!

The weather on May 2 in Irkutsk.

May 3, 2015 - RUSSIA - The month of May began with hail and snow.

Today, May 2, in some areas of Irkutsk was at one degree, with snow.

Yesterday almost the entire territory of the Irkutsk region had heavy snowfall.

Especially in the evening, snow fell abundantly in Slyudyanka area.

On social networks, perturbed Irkutsk citizens have asked if they could return to April, because it was warmer than it is now.

Thanks to Argiris Diamantis for this link

- Ice Age Now.