Earthquakes Hit Alaska's Aleutian Island and New Zealand
A NewsTalkers Article
CNN has reported earthquakes in the Aleutian Islands in the North Pacific near the Bering Sea, and in the South Pacific Ocean southeast ofRaoul Island near New Zealand, occurring less than 24 hours apart. I'm no seismologists, but the fact that thequakes are almost perpendicular with the earths axis and occurred so close together in time, seems to me like more than a coincidence.
A tsunami advisory had been issued for coastal Alaskaafter the magnitude 7.9 earthquake struck Monday about 15 miles from Little Sitkin Island. The town of Adak had evacuated its 150 residents to a shelter about 600 feet above sea level after the initial tsunami warning, City Manager Layton Lockett told CNN.However the advisory waS later canceled.
There were no initial reports of quake damage in Adak or on Shemya Island, said Ian Dickson, website manager for the Alaska Earthquake Information Center.
Dickson said there were 17 measurable aftershocks in the two hours after the quake.
First estimates put the quake, which had a depth of 71 milesaccording to seismologists, was initially measured at a magnitude of 8.0, was subsequently set by the U.S. Geological Survey at 7.9 magnitude.
Almost simultaneously CNN reported a trio of earthquakes had struck in the South Pacific Ocean Tuesday morningsoutheast of Raoul Island, New Zealand, theU.S. Geological Survey said. Also, as in the Alaska quake, th ere were no immediate reports of damage.
In the South Pacific, two quakes, with magnitudes of 6.9 and 6.3, hit within minutes of each other, according to USGS data. The larger of the two was originally reported by the USGS to be a 7.2-magnitude, but that measure was later downgraded to 6.9.
A third, 6.2-magnitude quake struck about 45 minutes later.
The quakes hit near the eastern edge of the Australian tectonic plate, one of the most active seismic regions in the world, according to the USGS.
The South Pacific quakes all a depth of about 12 miles, and happened about 50 miles southeast of Raoul Island.
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