Facts and Figures relating to the causes and consequences of the world's 5th-largest earthquake since 1900

Why was Japan's March 11 earthquake so big?

One answer is the large size of the fault rupture as well as the speed at which the Pacific Plate is continuously thrusting beneath Japan. People felt shaking in cities all over Honshu, Japan's main island.

Below are some more facts and figures relating to the causes and consequences of the world's fifth-largest earthquake since 1900.

Magnitude, according to USGS: 9.0

Speed at which the Pacific Plate is smashing into the Japanese island arc: 8.9 centimeters (3.5 inches) per year

Speed at which the San Andreas Fault in California is slipping: about 4 centimeters per year

Size of the rupture along the boundary between the Pacific and North American plates: 290 kilometers (180 miles) long, 80 kilometers across

Approximate length of Honshu island: 1,300 kilometers

Years since an earthquake of this magnitude has hit the plate boundary of Japan: 1,200

Duration of strong shaking reported from Japan: three to five minutes

Greatest distance from epicenter that visitors to the USGS Web site reported feeling the quake: About 2,000 kilometers

Distance that the island of Honshu appears to have moved after the quake: 2.4 meters

Change in length of a day caused by the earthquake's redistribution of Earth's mass: 1.8 microseconds shorter

Normal seasonal variation in a day's length: 1,000 microseconds

Depth of the quake: 24.4 kilometers

Range of depths at which earthquakes occur in Earth's crust: 0 – 700 kilometers

Top speed of a tsunami over the open ocean: About 800 kilometers per hour

Normal cruising speed of a jetliner: 800 kilometers per hour

Length of warning time Sendai residents had before tsunami hit: eight to 10 minutes

Number of confirmed foreshocks to the main shock: four

Magnitudes of the confirmed foreshocks: 6.0, 6.1, 6.1 and 7.2

Number of confirmed aftershocks: 401

Worldwide average annual number of earthquakes over magnitude 6.0: 150

 

World Wide Waste.it's just Astounding

World Wide Waste…it’s just Astounding

 

An average person throws away 74kg of organic

waste each year, which is the same as 1,077 banana

skins.

 

Every day 80 million food and drinks cans end up in

landfill - that's one and a half cans per person. In a

year, each person could fill a bath with the contents

of these cans!

 

We use over six billion glass bottles and jars each

year. It would take you over three and a half

thousand years to sing 'Six Billion Green Bottles'!

In the 1950s the world made less than 5 million

tonnes of plastic products. This has increased to

about 80 million tonnes today. We produce and use

20 times more plastic today than we did 50 years

ago!

 

Recycling waste materials supports about six times

as many waste-related jobs as there would be if the

same materials were treated as trash.

 

The oil equivalent of 35 Exxon Valdez tankers is

dumped into our nation’s rivers, lakes, and streams

every year! And used motor oil is far more deadly

than crude oil ...

 

The energy saved from recycling one glass bottle will

keep a light bulb burning for 4 hours.

Facts about our Earth

1. What is the hottest place on Earth?

Count one wrong if you guessed Death Valley in California. True enough on many days. But El Azizia in Libya recorded a temperature of 136 degrees Fahrenheit (57.8 Celsius) on Sept. 13, 1922 – the hottest ever measured. In Death Valley, it got up “only” as high as 134 Fahrenheit on July 10, 1913.

2. And the coldest place?

Far and away, the coldest temperature ever measured on Earth was -129 Fahrenheit (-89 Celsius) at Vostok, Antarctica, on July 21, 1983.

3. What makes thunder?

Lightning, sure, but to be more illuminating:  the air around a lightning bolt is superheated to about five times the temperature of the sun. This sudden heating causes the air to expand faster than the speed of sound, which compresses the air and forms a shock wave; we hear it as thunder.

4. Can rocks float?

In a volcanic eruption, the violent separation of gas from lava produces a “frothy” rock called pumice, loaded with gas bubbles. Some of it can indeed float, geologists say.

5. Can rocks grow?

Yes. Rocks called iron-manganese crusts grow on mountains under the sea. The crusts precipitate material slowly from seawater, growing about 1 millimeter every million years. Your fingernails grow about the same amount every two weeks.

6. How much space dust falls to Earth each year?

Estimates vary, but the USGS (U.S. Geological Survey) says at least 1,000 million grams, or roughly 1,000 tons of material enters the atmosphere every year and makes its way to Earth’s surface. One group of scientists claims microbes rain down from space, too, and that extraterrestrial organisms are responsible for flu epidemics, although there's been no proof of this, and I'm not holding my breath.

7. How far does regular dust blow in the wind?

A 1999 study showed that African dust finds its way to Florida and can help push parts of the state over the prescribed air quality limit for particulate matter set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The dust is kicked up by high winds in North Africa and carried as high as 20,000 feet (6,100 meters), where it's caught up in the trade winds and carried across the sea. Dust from China makes its way to North America, too.

8. Where is the world’s highest waterfall?

The water of Angel Falls in Venezuela drops 3,212 feet (979 meters).

9. What two great American cities are destined to merge?

The San Andreas fault, which runs north-south, is slipping at a rate of about 2 inches (5 centimeters) per year, causing Los Angeles to move towards San Francisco. Scientists forecast LA will be a suburb of the City by the Bay in about 15 million years.

10. Is Earth a sphere?

Because the planet rotates and is more flexible than you might imagine, it bulges at the midsection, creating a sort of pumpkin shape. The bulge was lessening for centuries but now, suddenly, it is growing, a recent study showed. Accelerated melting of Earth's glaciers is taking the blame for the gain in equatorial girth.