back to article Mighty quake shook ENTIRE PLANET, broke tectonic plate

An April 2012 earthquake in Indonesian may signal the breakup of the Indo-Australian tectonic plate and gave the earth's crust such a shaking that earthquakes happened all over the globe. That's the thrust of new articles in Nature, one of which analyses the quake and says the “11 April 2012 event had an extraordinarily …

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  1. Silverburn
    Happy

    Doomed!

    We're doomed! All doomed! Doomed I tell ya!

    Oh wait - maybe not.

    1. Crisp
      Mushroom

      Re: Doomed!

      Yeah, it's the apocalypse all right.

    2. dssf
      Joke

      Re: Doomed! the thrust of if?

      Is this is the slow thrust that is send the Earth's ass to a cracking, fitting/befitting end?

  2. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
    Pint

    We are Doomed

    if you read (and agree with) the prophecies in the Mayan Calendar.

    On the otherhand it might just be a load of snake oid/bunkum.

    I'll sit back and watch with a decent pint in my hand because there is sod all I can do about it so why worry.

    1. Jay Holmes

      Re: We are Doomed

      That snake oid shit is powerful lol. But I completely agree if the world is gonna go to hell there is nothing I can do about it. There are definitly smarter people out there that (in theory should be) trying to solve this sort of problem, before it gets worse.

      But so it Steve Im with you a nice cold beer and a deck chair to enjoy the show with!!

      1. Dave 62
        Headmaster

        Re: We are Doomed

        >There are definitly smarter people out there

        You got that right... well mostly right, it's d-e-f-i-n-i-t-e-l-y.

      2. Local G
        Trollface

        Re: We are Doomed

        "solve this sort of problem, before it gets worse"

        "A Journey to the Center of the Plates. An Industrial size Crazy Glue. And Thou beside me in the Crustiness."

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Phew

    Lucky its not near America - otherwise the Total Sucking Asshats would declare it a new border and demand rectal examinations with Black and Decker drills.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Phew

      I hope not, flying into the United States of Paranoia this weekend.

    2. Armando 123
      Coat

      Re: Phew

      Yes, because heaven knows no European or Asian country has ever claimed land that ... oh, wait.

      Mine's the one with the Clive of India biography in the pocket

    3. TheRealRoland
      Alien

      Re: Phew

      Did you have those bad dreams again, last night?

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    '“slip-strike”, an unusual type of earthquake that sees the crust split'

    By definition any fault splits the crust. A strike slip sees adjacent sections of crust slide horizontally past one another with only limited vertical movement. Normal faults pull the crust apart whilst thrust faults shorten the crust by pushing one section of the crust over another.

    Strike slips aren't that unusual either. The world's most famous earthquake zone along the Pacific coast of America is dominated by strike slip faults (of which the San Andreas is merely one). Other big strike slips are the Great Glen Fault in Scotland which still has occasional wobblies, the highly active Alpine fault that runs the length of New Zealand, and the North Anatolian Fault which runs through northern Turkey including not too far from Istanbul.

    1. nanchatte
      Trollface

      Re: '“slip-strike”, an unusual type of earthquake that sees the crust split'

      Why does everything in the US have to be the "world's xxxxest." I have no idea where you live but "the world's most famous" fault lies just off the coast of Japan, as far as I can tell, because I live in Japan and we had a really big quake recently....

      Or did you actually mean the part of the pacific coast along America that is the most famous?

      Kinda like "world series" baseball... Not that famous outside the Americas.

  5. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

    OK

    Now just wait for mutated neutrinos melting the Earth core. I saw it in the movie (and I wanted to pry my own eyed out afterwards) so it must be true.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      or, as Dara O Briain put's it

      the latinos are mutating. Caramba !

      1. ici.chacal
        Thumb Up

        Re: or, as Dara O Briain put's it

        I guess that'll be part of the US immigration problem then; latinos crossing the mexican border into the US unobserved at close to the speed of light...

    2. fearnothing

      Re: OK

      This is clearly not the end of the world; the recent tsunamis haven't even topped 20m high. Wake me when they reach 1.5km high.

  6. Thomas 4

    Broken plates

    Does this mean we'll have to pay for a new one? =(

    1. ps2os2
      Meh

      Re: Broken plates

      Only if its new China:)

  7. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
    Happy

    Who knew the Earth was Greek?

    It's had a party, and now it's started smashing plates...

  8. fridaynightsmoke
    Coat

    Vulcanism

    So an increase in vulcanism means the locals won't necessarily live long, or prosper?

    1. Steve Renouf
      Joke

      Re: Vulcanism

      True! But at least they'll all have pointy ears!

    2. Crisp
      Coffee/keyboard

      Re: Vulcanism

      That comment is going to cost you a small fortune in keyboards.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Vulcanism

      Maybe not just the locals ;)

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Toba

  9. 0laf
    Boffin

    AGW?

    Come on! A disaster scenario, human lives at risk what's the AGW / CO2 angle?

    Someone must have a model that predicts earthquakes depending on how much my 'leccy costs?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: AGW?

      They have already claimed that there are more earthquakes due to increased CO2.

      Unfortunately I can not find the peer reviewed paper that spouted this rubbish, but here is a quote from Bill McGuire from the UK government's Natural Hazard Working Group.

      "Climate change is already driving more earthquakes and giant landslides in some parts of the world.”

      1. Stoneshop
        WTF?

        Re: AGW?

        Landslides, mmkay. Increased rainfall in areas sensitive to waterlogging, combined with deforestation.

        But earthquakes? How much distance do you have to have between you and your rocker to be able to think there's a causal connection between tectonic and atmospheric events?

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Typical

    Splitters!

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Headmaster

    "earthquake in Indonesian" = gempa bumi

    Is this a new type of earthquake, it creates tremors that speak in the language of the country affected? So no one can be in any doubt as to what's happening.

    Brilliant, the power of nature!

  12. Anonymous John

    I've just had a great idea for a new Bruce Willis film.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      does it involve

      a commercial meat grinder, quicklime, H2SO4, a sinter or machine press?

  13. Jeroen Braamhaar
    Mushroom

    Anthropogenic Global Warming to be blamed in 10 ...9 ... 8 ...

    1. NukEvil
      Trollface

      eh?

      It's not global warming, silly, it's climate change!

      Speaking of climate change and earthquakes, did anybody else have the misfortune of watching "The Day After Tomorrow", where twisters AND an earthquake were ripping up Los Angeles? I guess the producers thought the weight of all that spinning air can actually cause the San Andreas fault to rupture, causing part of that skyscraper to collapse at the same time the twister took a chunk out of it.

      Troll, because the way his mouth is shaped sorta looks like what happens when two tectonic plates can't agree on which way to go...

      1. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
        Big Brother

        No

        because I was watching "the core".

        well watching the core does not really describe the experience of being tied in a chair with my eyelids taped open and looking at the TV while its on

        PS I did confess to everything after 22 mins.. which they said was a record length of time

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    its all unwinding now

    New types of transgenic organisms are growing in your gut now and they have been shown to cause essentially every health problem out there. Transgenic Bt corn makes its way into your gut flora and now you are being poisoned with Bt for life, which slowly splits your gut open and causes food to make it into the blood stream. you will get sick and die quickly, if you dont live in greece or italy in which case you're already getting petrol bombs lobbed at you day and night.

    wake up

    1. The Alpha Klutz
      Megaphone

      Re: its all unwinding now

      You don't own a house or any land. You weren't given a decent education or any job prospects worth a fuck. And now, you can say goodbye to your NHS, your pension, your car, and your livelihood. There are people in China being forced to do your job for pennies, and if they don't like it, they cant even commit suicide anymore. And you support this awful regime with hundreds of your over-inflated pounds and your fat fucking dollars. You think everything is just a big playground for you, and it's all okay as long as you can sit on the toilet with your iPhone in your free moments off from lining up at the dole officer or going to special government retraining camps to teach you how to be a security guard so you can keep the other plebs in line when they finally figure it out too.

      It's such a clever system that you will be simultaneously oppressed and an oppressor. It's true hell on earth.

      1. Beachrider

        Re: its all unwinding now

        Perhaps Jon Stewart's characterization of modern-USA condition would help:

        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=km4BfW2836Y

        FYI

        1. mfritz0
          Unhappy

          Re: its all unwinding now

          That video has been removed due to a copyright complaint by Viacom. What do they have to do with it?

  15. Tyfach
    Headmaster

    Anachronistic Scale Pedantry Alert

    Ah bless, is this being written from the early 70s? Richter Scale went out with loon pants and racist sitcoms - the metric you're looking for is the Moment Magnitude (Mw) (i.e, Mw=8.7).

    1. garden-snail
      Headmaster

      Re: Anachronistic Scale Pedantry Alert

      While we're at it, there's no such thing as a 'tectonic plate' either. 'Lithospheric plate' would be a more appropriate term.

      1. Scott Pedigo
        Coat

        Re: Anachronistic Scale Pedantry Alert

        "While we're at it, there's no such thing as a 'tectonic plate' either. 'Lithospheric plate' would be a more appropriate term."

        Are you saying that Germans don't have plates?

  16. 4ecks
    FAIL

    Units & scales

    If your not going to use El Reg units i.e. Norris - No & linguine - lg, etc. then please remember that the 1930's Richter Scale is not the same as the now used 1970's MMS Mw, especially for large magnitude quakes.

    Nevertheless, that was one big mutha of a quake - guess the bod's at HAARP got a bit too carried away!

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Careful ..

    The plate is hot.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Simon Sharwood, idiot

    Can't even regurgitate some basic details without twisting them into incoherent sentences.

    What's it like to have so much difficulty with just comprehending the world around you, as you must?

  19. JaitcH
    Meh

    Would cure a lot of the world's problems

    California is huge, especially when compared to Delaware or Rhode Island, a 4-way split would make the whole mess far more manageable.

    Or, if on the Indian/Pakistan border, it could split Kashmir apart from it's warring neighbours.

    One problem, everyone, especially children, will have to learn new names for any additional continents formed.

    1. Michael Dunn
      Joke

      Re: Would cure a lot of the world's problems

      "California is huge" Obligatory quote: You may think it's a long way to the chemist's at the end of the street.......

  20. An(other) Droid
    Alert

    2012

    Now don't tell me that this is *not* related to the 2012 Mayan thingy.

    1. cortland

      Re: 2012

      Mayanmor -- or less.

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