**The more you sweat in practice,
the less you bleed in battle.**
Author Unknown
LARGEST QUAKES so far today -
5.0 NEW BRITAIN REGION, P.N.G.
Yesterday, 3/17/14 -
5.6 SOUTH GEORGIA ISLAND REGION
5.3 TAIWAN REGION
5.0 NEAR EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.0 CERAM SEA, INDONESIA
5.1 MINDANAO, PHILIPPINES
5.3 OFFSHORE TARAPACA, CHILE
5.0 OFFSHORE TARAPACA, CHILE
5.0 OFFSHORE TARAPACA, CHILE
5.0 OFFSHORE TARAPACA, CHILE
6.2 OFFSHORE TARAPACA, CHILE
5.0 OFFSHORE TARAPACA, CHILE
5.1 OFFSHORE TARAPACA, CHILE
California - 6:25 a.m. Monday, March 17, a 4.4-magnitude earthquake rattled LA. Shaking and jolted nerves reported across a wide area. The quake struck near Westwood.
Chile earthquake resulted in minor damage, brief evacuations. The strong 6.7-magnitude earthquake shook Chile's northern Pacific shore Sunday.
New Zealand - Alpine Fault quake risk 'increasing'. People in Canterbury have been warned that while the likelihood of localised earthquakes is reducing, the risk of a major shake along the Alpine Fault is increasing. While the region is heading into a period of reduced seismicity of faults near the city, quakes centred in the Southern Alps are an increasing risk.
VOLCANOES -
Iceland - Hekla Volcano "could erupt soon". The magma chamber under volcano Hekla is now almost full, according to a professor in geophysics at University of Iceland, indicating that an eruption could occur sometime soon. Hekla, which is the most active volcano in Iceland, could erupt with very short notice. People should not climb the mountain.
The police in Rangárvallasýsla recommend that people who intend on hiking up Hekla volcano take their mobile phones with them so that if measurements show that an eruption is imminent, they can be contacted via sms. Geologists have been expecting an eruption since 2006.
During the last eruption, in 2000, it took just 79 minutes from the first quake until eruption, and that was longer than in previous eruptions. Hekla has erupted more than 20 times in the last 1,000 years. The last big eruption in Hekla was in 1947. ( Hekla webcam )
Canary Islands - El Hierro volcano update: new pulse of volcanic tremor near La Restinga? What looks like a new swarm of earthquakes accompanied by strong harmonic tremor appeared on the southernmost seismic station at La Restinga.
If it is not due to some local, human-induced work or malfunction, it suggests that the quakes are very shallow, since they don't appear on the signals of other stations. Whatever is happening there will probably become clearer soon. The latest earthquake swarm in the NE part of the island which started on Friday had more or less stopped during the past 24 hours. Some GPS stations showed 2-4 cm uplift during the weekend, which supports the idea of a new deep magma intrusion.
Earthquake Swarms may Indicate Imminent Volcanic Eruption - Earthquake swarms, seismic events marked by sequences of many earthquakes in a short period of time, may signal imminent volcanic eruptions because they are triggered by blocked lava flow, according to a new study, and scientists suggest these types of earthquakes can be used to give the public warning of an impending eruption.
The research on earthquake swarms preceding volcanic eruption led the researchers to believe that they were caused by subterranean lava behaving abnormally. "Our article talks about a special type of volcanic earthquake that we think is caused by lava breaking, something that usually can't happen because lava is supposed to flow more like a liquid, rather than crack like a piece of rock. Much like breaking a piece of chewing gum by stretching it really fast, lab tests show that hot lava can break when stretched quickly enough under certain pressures like those that you might find in the conduit of a volcano."
The researchers contend that because the focus of the earthquake swarm at Augustine Volcano moved deeper into the earth, it indicates the magma conduit was getting clogged. As pressure built inside the clogged conduit, it may have triggered the eruption of Augustine Volcano the following day.
"We think that these earthquakes happened within the lava that was just beginning to erupt at the top of Augustine. The earthquakes show that the lava flow was grinding to a halt and plugging up the system. This caused pressure to build up from below, and resulted in a series of large explosions 36 hours later. We believe that these types of earthquakes can be used to signal that a volcano is becoming pressurized and getting ready to explode, giving scientists time to alert the public of an imminent eruption."
TROPICAL STORMS -
Current tropical storms - maps and details.
No current tropical storms.
Vietnam - This year, the number of tropical storms and depressions on the East Sea is predicted to be less than the average of many years. Vietnam will have 10 storms and tropical depressions in 2014.
Hong Kong should prepare for 4-7 typhoons this year, says Observatory.
HEAVY SNOW / EXTREME COLD -
RECORD-BREAKING SNOWFALL for St. Patrick's Day in New Jersey - For the record-breaking holiday, the National Weather Service measured 4.7 inches of snow at Philadelphia International Airport on Monday.
RECORD-BREAKING SNOWFALL around nation's capital - The National Weather Service said a winter storm on Monday was breaking snowfall records around Washington D. C.
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