Animated Sequence of Earthquakes

The earthquake which has devastated Japan has been the focus of many this past week, not the least of which are the scientists who are studying the quake and its subsequent tsunami. Geophysicist Joachim Saul from the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences (Helmholtz Association) created an animation which shows the sequence of quakes since March 9.

The image can be viewed here.

The interesting part of this animation is the foreshock which took place on March 9 at almost the exact location of the tsunami-earthquake.

The sequence of events started with a 7.2 magnitude earthquake off the Japanese east coast, which was soon followed by a series of smaller aftershocks. However, things really started to heat up on the morning of March 11 when the magnitude 9 earthquake hit. This earthquake has been followed by many aftershocks, some of which have even come close to being registered as magnitude 8. Activity has slowly subsided, though on March 16 the aftershocks were still made up of magnitude 5 earthquakes, with a magnitude 6 every now and again.

Source: Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres

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