Intense earthquake swarm rattles Alaskan peninsula

June 13, 2012ALASKAAn intense earthquake swarm continues to shake the peninsula of Alaska. A 4.8 was also reported in neighboring Kamchatka. The depth of the earthquakes striking Alaska range from 200 km to about 40 km (24.9 miles) and most are occurring about 429 km from the city of Anchorage. Alaska is without a doubt the most tectonically-active region in the United States. Alaska experiences more than half of all earthquakes recorded in North America each year. This is mainly due to Alaska’s unique location, which fits like a piece of a jigsaw puzzle on the northern rim of the Pacific Basin. At the northwest corner of the North America, Alaska is situated at the receiving end of the Pacific Plate as it slides laterally past southeast Alaska and collides directly with the North American Plate across south-central Alaska and along the length of Aleutian Island Chain. The accumulation of tectonic stresses at depth along the plate boundaries and the translation of those stresses into the shallower crust of southern Alaska are believed to be the driving forces behind the high level of earthquake activity that occurs in our state. We’re also seeing seismic stress rippling up the coast of the U.S. from Baja to Alaska. We may be heading for another seismic stress release. –The Extinction Protocol
This entry was posted in Earth Changes, Earth Watch, Earthquake Omens?, High-risk potential hazard zone, Lithosphere collapse & fisssure, Potential Earthchange hotspot, Seismic tremors, Signs of Magnetic Field weakening, Time - Event Acceleration, Volcano Watch. Bookmark the permalink.

17 Responses to Intense earthquake swarm rattles Alaskan peninsula

  1. Susan says:

    Yikes…looks as though the sun is ramping up too…intense magnetic detection…”ALERT: Type IV” Radio Emission…explained in detail here. https://www.facebook.com/mobileprotection#!/photo.php?fbid=282132635218371&set=a.139563502808619.26301.139562326142070&type=1&theater

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  2. Columbine says:

    Been watching this swarm, too. Wrote to my sister and told her to hang on, a big one might be on the way. Because of where these are located, tho, a big one in that area might not mean much where she is at in the Interior. Kind of like a big one in California wouldn’t do much in Minnesota. 🙂 🙂

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  3. Dr. Vigeant says:

    Is anyone anyone else keeping track of what appears to be a substantial geomagnetic CME hit on free-to-air television? Wow, it’s making watching the “Today” show on Ch. 4 a real challenge.

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  4. Therese D says:

    This is all very interesting information. I was suprised at the 4.4 St. Paul Alaska event. A quake above the Aluetian Chain struck me as odd for some reason.

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    • Stewart says:

      i noticed on the usgs website that all of the quakes were listed in Alaska earlier and now they have been removed from the list. Wonder why that is?

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      • I noticed that, too. Alaska and Northern California. It’s a good thing I have the map to prove it never happened.

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      • Stewart says:

        Alvin,

        Why would the usgs do that? Are they trying to hide something? It’s not the first time ive noticed it . Always seems to be in the US also

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      • Unknown…let’s give them the benefit of the doubt it was a computer glitch. If it’s an actual seismic registering, greater activity will follow. It’s just not very reassurring if it takes published reports over the internet to rouse the sleeping night watchman that there’s a potential data problem. These are the very people in task of monitoring Long Valley and Yellowstone.

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      • rita says:

        Oh, i am so glad to know i am not the only one that experienced this. It so happened that this morning i was drawn to check that site and my mouth fell open. There was a major swarm in Alaska and i haven’t seen such swarming since the march 11 Japan quake. Then i checked back later on and everything was different. I wondered what was happening. Did they get the readings wrong or what?

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  5. Barry says:

    Alvin,
    I also saw the numerous Alaskan peninsula quakes (counted 13) and then they disappeared. I’m not familiar with the USGS system, but one source speculated the events were all “computer generated” (perhaps through a glitch) and anticipated their upcoming removal. He was correct about their deletion. From what you know of their system, are computer “hiccups” of that magnitude a realistic explanation? Several times in the past I have seen preliminary reports from the USGS e-mail notification service deleted after the event was later reviewed by a seismologist. Thanks for all your efforts.

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  6. Columbine says:

    Reminder for all readers/commenters: There are other places than the USGS on the internet to look up this information.

    This morning on the AVO sites (Alaska Volcano Observatory) I found a link to their Google Earth page http://www.avo.alaska.edu/eq/kml/AVOquakes.kmz . The area these ‘quakes’ happened in appears to be near Mount Griggs and North Arm Naknek Lake (trying to locate according to the map above in this post). The AEIC (Alaska Earthquake Information Center) still has at least 3 of them on their page. http://www.aeic.alaska.edu/recent/sub/
    as well as many others! :
    http://www.aeic.alaska.edu/recent/macsub/index.html

    I do not know why the USGS took these quakes off their page but I could guess: MAYBE they were determined to be glacial movement, OR volcanic tremors instead of earthquakes, OR they MAY have a policy not to list Alaskan earthquakes unless they are felt and reported by someone until they reach a specific magnitude simply because listing all of the Alaska quakes each day would overrun their web page and a computer glitch listed those yesterday. Someone could contact the USGS and find out.

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  7. The largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century

    What was the largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century? Perhaps Mount St. Helens in 1980 or maybe Mount Pinatubo in 1991? The answer is actually Novarupta, a volcano that erupted in 1912 and was three times the size of the Pinatubo eruption and 30 times larger than Mount St. Helens.

    The volcano is relatively unknown because of its remote location in southern Alaska, and that also means that the imagery of the area isn’t especially great. However, the NASA Earth Observatory just released an excellent image that was captured in August, 2002, that gives us a great look at the volcano.
    http://www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2012/06/the_largest_volcanic_eruption_of_th.html

    The eruption was so massive that dust was found as far away as Puget Sound, Washington, and the ash from the volcano circled the globe and caused lower global temperatures for a year.

    You can view this image for yourself inside of Google Earth by using this KML file [Google Earth File. You must have GE installed.] or you can read more about the eruption on the NASA Earth Observatory site.

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  8. Ronny White says:

    the USGS also routinely downgrades quakes by 0.1-0.2,when nobody else does.Whats that all about?

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