05-07-2004, 05:23 AM
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#34 (permalink)
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Muffled
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Link to what was wrong with the show.
It's pretty long, but here are the first few.
Quote:
FICTION: There can be a magnitude 10.5 earthquake
FACT: The magnitude of an earthquake is related to the length of the fault on which it occurs--the longer the fault, the larger the earthquake. In order to have a magnitude 10.5 earthquake you would have to have a fault that circles the Earth - no such fault exists.
The largest earthquake ever recorded was a M(w) 9.5 on May 22, 1960 in Chile. This occurred on a fault that is almost 1,000 miles (1600 kilometers) long. The earthquake ruptured along the entire length of the fault.
The largest earthquake in the United States occurred in Alaska on March 27th, 1964 and was a magnitude M(w) 9.2. This earthquake ruptured 620 miles (1,000 km) of the Alaska-Aleutian fault megathrust, which is 2240 miles (3600 km) long.
For comparison, the San Andreas Fault is only 800 miles (1290 km) long. The longest rupture on the San Andreas Fault was 250 miles (400 km) during the 1906 earthquake.
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FICTION: California will split apart from the rest of the United States and become an island/Oceanfront property in Barstow
FACT: California is split by a transform plate boundary separating the Pacific plate from the North American plate. This means that the land west of the San Andreas fault is sliding northwest past the rest of the United States, towards San Francisco. This sliding does not create any space between the two plates for water to fill in. Just like if you rub your hands together, your hands are sliding past each other, but there is no space opening up in between them.
In fact, because there is a bend in the San Andreas Fault, the land on both sides of the fault (at the bend) are actually converging and getting closer together. This is what caused the formation of the Transverse Ranges, mountains to the northeast of the Los Angeles basin. The 1994 Northridge earthquake (M 6.7) is an example of an earthquake caused by this convergence.
Independent of plate motion, Barstow is at an elevation of over 2100 feet (640 meters). This means that the ocean water would have to travel significantly uphill to even reach Barstow.
So there will be no oceanfront property in Barstow or anywhere else in central California.
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FICTION: The earth will open and swallow a train, my car, my town, or me
FACT: A popular literary device is a fault that opens during an earthquake to swallow up an inconvenient character. But unfortunately for principled writers, gaping faults exist only in movies and novels. The ground moves across a fault during an earthquake, not away from it. If the fault could open, there would be no friction. Without friction, there would be no earthquake. Shallow crevasses can form during earthquake-induced landslides, lateral spreads, or other types of ground failures. Faults, however, do not open up during an earthquake.
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__________________
it's quiet in here
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