Earthquake in Hayward, how predictable are earthquakes, what is the Richter Scale, what does it mean? Horses too.

  I watched a video yesterday, it was taken in Egypt in front of one of the great pyramids, it was an early morning setting and I forget what it was about. During the video every once in a while, a horse-driven wagon would drive by on the road directly in line with the camera and the Pyramid. Eqypt is a modern country, like all modern countries they have all the stuff modern societies have. As I was watching the video, now it's turned into a horse-drawn wagon video, I wondered how we in the USA have gotten so far away from our roots that practically no one depends on animal driven vehicles any longer. I have often thought about using a horse and wagon, but there is a lot of infrastructures involved in housing a large animal such as a horse. Compounding that, I have never had anything to do with horses in my life, I have worked around a lot of livestock, we always called horses "hay burners", another way of saying "liability". I have always envisioned them as being a lot of work, and very expensive to feed, house, and provide medical care for. That's about how far my planning to use a horse-driven wagon gets, it would be kinda cool to have one, but I would put the animal in danger so I won't do anything but "think" about having one. I'd like to add one more item to this misplaced horse conversation, during the late 1800's and early 1900's, in New York City, 1,000 horses would die on the streets every day. There was in existence a City Department tasked with recovering them, I'm sure it was a common problem in each major city of the world.
                 So moving right along.

The seismometer, basic operation.

  We had an earthquake this morning, 4.4 on the Richter scale, ratings on the algorithm are 0-10. The shocks caused by an earthquake are measured with a seismometer, it plots the information it gathers on the seismograph (basically a piece of paper shaped in a circle with a needle recording the vibrations in a graph type of arraignment). A lower reading on the scale cannot be felt, that is a level of 2 or below, however, they are picked up by the seismometer. The higher on the scale an earthquake is the more damage they cause, 7 on the scale can be catastrophic. Developed in 1935 by Charles Richter of the California Institute of Technology, (Link) to enable the mechanical measurement of an earthquake mathematically to enable scientists to compare the amplitude of different quakes. Magnitude is presented in whole numbers and decimal fractions, a 5.3 being a moderate earthquake and 6.3 would be a strong quake. Each whole number increase in magnitude is 10X more than the lower number, a 7 on the Richter scale is 10 times the amplitude of a 6, each whole number increase in amplitude is a release of 31 times the amount of energy emitted by a number just one step lower.
  The Richter scale does not help in predicting earthquakes, only in measuring them. We hear often that earthquakes can gradually build up strength until the "big one" happens, but does a series of small quakes mean a larger one is on the way? Let's look into it a little bit, the ultimate goal of earthquake prediction is to warn society of a potentially catastrophic earthquake taking place in the far enough future to enable evacuations of affected areas. The US Geological survey performs research on predicting earthquakes, the surveys are conducted in the field, laboratory, and computer simulations of earthquake mechanics and known fault zones. The goal scientists are working to achieve is to be able to increase the reliability of predicting earthquakes, within a certain year. The earthquake probabilities are estimated in two ways, by studying the history of large earthquakes on a fault and the rate of accumulated strain in the underlying rock. Scientists record the historic frequency of large earthquakes in a fault to determine how likely a similar event will occur. For example, if a fault has experienced four magnitudes 8 or larger occurring in the past 200 years, occurring randomly not like clockwork, a 50% probability of an occurrence in the next 50 years would be estimated, meaning it is just as likely to occur as not. Complicating this is when stress is relieved on one part of the fault it may become stronger on another part making prediction tough at best.

It's hard to read, I suggest glancing at the map just to get a feel of how many faults there are here.

  The San Andreas Fault is one of the most studied faults in the world, for the past 150 years every 22 years a magnitude 6 or greater have occurred near Parkfield, California, the last shock was in 1966. Science has been conducting studies to "capture" the next earthquake in this area near Parkfield. A vast array of monitoring instruments were set up in the area during the late 1980s, the goal is to record measurements of the quake before, during and after the event, then to be able to come to a point of making a short-term prediction. An effective means of communication between science and local officials responsible for disaster response to enable an orderly, organized and informed public to be notified early enough to mitigate damage and loss of life. The project continually makes positive contributions to public policies, and Geological Science, it's a good project. (Link to an interesting article on everything to do with earthquakes.)
  Earthquakes can occur anywhere in any region of the world, one of the largest in the history of the United States took place in New Madrid, Missouri, the year was 1725, it caused the Mississippi to flow backward for a short while. A large fault lies beneath the giant City of New York, faults are below Yellowstone Valley, and the San Andreas fault travels from California south through Mexico to Puerto Vallarta. Understanding them is important to every country in the world, urban sprawl, new highways, and infrastructure all exposes the population to more faults, all of them have not been discovered. The more we understand earthquakes causes and effects it may enable us to eliminate loss of life and lessen the damages caused by them.

  For those of us in an Earthquake area there are some things we can do to prepare ourselves:
* Expect the Utilities to be interrupted, they may be out for a day or much longer.
* Prepare to be restricted from entering your home, if the severe structural damage is visited upon your home, it may be tagged.
* Have a way to charge your cell phone and other communication equipment, have a dynamic radio with you.
* Prepare with plenty of water, 1/2 gallon per day minimum is recommended, more is better, plan on being out of running water.
* Shelter, blankets, food, and extra clothing, essential for survival.
* Have an emergency kit ready, either made up yourself or a commercially available kit, mine is by the door. (Link to a commercially prepared kit.)
* Make sure to have at least one weeks medication with you.
   These are just a few ideas, each person has different needs and requirements, There is no reason to be afraid, or unduly alarmed, accept the fact an earthquake will take place, after a while it is accepted as just a part of living in an earthquake-prone area. Most of the time when an earthquake happens people pause, look around and typically ask someone near them, "was that an earthquake?" I have experienced that with every earthquake I have been in, Normally there has been time to get out, but then again I have never been in a big one, but "they" keep telling us it's on its way, we'll see I guess.
  Thanks for reading and sharing, leave a comment, tell me your earthquake story. Thanks.
jacquesandkate  emergencykitsplus.com