Godzilla?

Maybe it’s because I’m at the northern Oregon coast, right now, but this article caught my eye:

Scientists listening to underwater microphones have detected an unusual swarm of earthquakes off central Oregon, something that often happens before a volcanic eruption – except there are no volcanoes in the area.

Scientists don’t know exactly what the earthquakes mean, but they could be the result of molten rock rumbling away from the recognized earthquake faults off Oregon, said Robert Dziak, a geophysicist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Oregon State University.

There have been more than 600 quakes over the past 10 days in a basin 150 miles southwest of Newport. The biggest was magnitude 5.4, and two others were more than magnitude 5.0, OSU reported.

On the hydrophones, the quakes sound like low thunder and are unlike anything scientists have heard in 17 years of listening, Dziak said. Some of the quakes have also been detected by earthquake instruments on land.

The usual pattern for earthquakes is that there will be a major jolt, followed by smaller ones. The usual pattern is not happening, here.

Scientists hope to send out an OSU research ship to take water samples, looking for evidence that sediment has been stirred up and chemicals that would indicate magma is moving up through the Juan de Fuca Plate, Dziak said.

Or maybe for a giant fire-breathing lizard?

28 comments

Skip to comment form

    • brobin on April 14, 2008 at 21:59

    Oregon and Japan are both on the Pacific Ocean, but that is about all they have in common.

    😉

  1. with us she’s getting ready to wipe us all off the face of the earth.  Who could blame her?

  2. it sounds like it is south of an area with sizable methane calthrate formations…..

  3. like we’re caught in some scary crazy movie.

    • C Barr on April 14, 2008 at 23:26

    where the Juan de Fuca plate is sliding under the North American Plate.  Geologic evidence indicates that it has produced massive earthquakes with associated tsunamis.  The last one was some three hundred years ago and sent a wave to Japan.

  4. not far …..

    the area is the source of an enourmous methane vent from the plate activity………..

    thus the deposits…..

  5. 🙂

    • nocatz on April 15, 2008 at 02:03

     mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn

  6. http://www.npr.org/templates/s

Comments have been disabled.