Category Archives: plate tectonics

2018/05/15
10:57 AM
by: Jay Patton

Earthquake Report: Madagascar!

Today there was an earthquake in a region that we don’t hear about that often. Madagascar is off the coast of southeastern Africa and the oceanic basin to the west is likely formed as part of the East Africa Rift … Continue reading →

Posted in africa, earthquake, education, geology, Indian Ocean, plate tectonics, strike-slip

2018/05/04
11:06 PM
by: Jay Patton

Earthquake-Volcanic Eruption Report: Hawai’i

My USGS Earthquake Notification Service email inbox has been going on overtime. There has been a swarm of earthquakes on the southeastern part of the big island, with USGS volcanologists hypothesizing about magma movement and suggesting that an eruption may … Continue reading →

Posted in earthquake, education, geology, pacific, plate tectonics, volcanoes

2018/04/07
11:53 AM
by: Jay Patton

Earthquake Report: Channel Islands Update #1

Well well. There was lots of interest in this M 5.3 earthquake offshore of Ventura/Los Angeles, justifiably so. Southern California is earthquake country. Here is an update. There was lots of information that I was trying to incorporate and I … Continue reading →

Posted in collision, earthquake, education, geology, los angeles, pacific, plate tectonics, San Andreas, strike-slip

2018/04/05
4:33 PM
by: Jay Patton

Earthquake Report: Channel Islands

I was finally getting around to writing a report for the deep Bolivia earthquake (Bolivia report here), when a M 5.3 earthquake struck offshore of the channel islands (south of Santa Cruz Island, west of Los Angeles). As is typical … Continue reading →

Posted in earthquake, education, geology, los angeles, pacific, plate tectonics, San Andreas, strike-slip, Transform

2018/04/05
12:54 PM
by: Jay Patton

Earthquake Report: Bolivia!

A couple days ago there was a deep focus earthquake in the downgoing Nazca plate deep beneath Bolivia. This earthquake has an hypocentral depth of 562 km (~350 miles). We are still unsure what causes an earthquake at such great … Continue reading →

Posted in earthquake, education, geology, pacific, plate tectonics, subduction

2018/03/29
4:23 PM
by: Jay Patton

Earthquake Report: New Britain

Well, those earthquakes from earlier, one a foreshock to a later one, were foreshocks to an earthquake today! Here is my report from a couple days ago. The M 6.6 and M 6.3 straddle today’s earthquake and all have similar … Continue reading →

Posted in earthquake, education, geology, plate tectonics, subduction

2018/03/26
9:13 AM
by: Jay Patton

Earthquake Report: New Britain

The New Britain region is one of the more active regions in the world. See a list of earthquake reports for this region at the bottom of this page, above the reference list. Today’s M 6.6 earthquake happened close in … Continue reading →

Posted in earthquake, education, geology, pacific, plate tectonics, subduction

2018/03/23
11:52 AM
by: Jay Patton

Earthquake Report: Gorda plate!

I was at a workshop to develop a unified strategy for research and monitoring in the Klamath River estuary (led by the Yurok Tribe, Andreas Krauss) yesterday and missed feeling the first of two M 4.6-4.7 earthquakes. I was presenting … Continue reading →

Posted in cascadia, earthquake, education, geology, gorda, humboldt, plate tectonics, strike-slip

2018/03/08
3:46 PM
by: Jay Patton

Earthquake Report: Malawi & Mozambique

Busy day today. This is my second earthquake report today. This report is about a M 5.6 earthquake along the Malawi Rift (MR) system, part of the larger East Africa Rift (EAR) extensional plate boundary. The EAR is currently the … Continue reading →

Posted in africa, earthquake, education, Extension, geology, plate tectonics

2018/03/08
12:43 PM
by: Jay Patton

Earthquake Report: New Ireland!

We had an M 6.8 earthquake near a transform micro-plate boundary fault system north of New Ireland, Papua New Guinea today. Here is the USGS website for this earthquake. The main transform fault (Weitin fault) is ~40 km to the … Continue reading →

Posted in earthquake, education, geology, pacific, plate tectonics, strike-slip, Transform