We just got a 6.9 earthquake

[SlowwHand]

Naw, the one out here was just normal movement on the San Andres fault system. Baja and much of coastal California are on the Pacific plate which is moving north-northwest relative to the North America plate.

For those of you that don't know, let me explain.
What Oerdin is saying is that this one was of those that Californians have come to accept will one day dump their prune picker asses into the Pacific.

[Wezil]

Arizona Bay...

[Dinner]

Oerdin, it seems like there are two stretches of heavy earthquake areas - calif,mexico,guatemala and peru,chile and a hole inbetween. Is this "hole" just because there are no news reports or is it actually more quiet (lots of small quakes instead of few but big) ?

Most of the earthquakes tend to happen at the edges of tectonic plates with few quakes occurring inside the plates themselves though they do happen. In fact, because the interior parts of plates rarely have their old faults move tension tends to store up there so when they do happen their big quakes. Think of the New Madrid quake in Arkansas in the early 19th century which changed the direction of the mississippi river for several days or the 18th century quake in Lisbon, Portugal which destroyed the city.

Here's a map of the major plates, spreading centers, subduction zones, and major transverse faults (at plate boundaries) of the world.

[Dinner]

For those of you that don't know, let me explain.
What Oerdin is saying is that this one was of those that Californians have come to accept will one day dump their prune picker asses into the Pacific.

It's a transverse fault (right lateral) not a dip slip fault so, no, California will not fall into the sea. Part of it is moving north-northwest though compared to the rest of North America so we're slowly moving northish.

[-Jrabbit]

Today's xkcd...

[Heraclitus]

The USGS changed the rating to 7.2 and says the strongest after shock was 5.4. To compare the Haiti earthquake was a 7.0 so this was stronger then the earthquake in Haiti. There are some reports of a collapsed building in Calixico just north of Mexicali, BC which was the epicenter.

The Haiti one (and this one by proxy as well) was nothing compared to the Chilean one. The fact they had relativley little damage is a testament to how well a proper civlization can do even in emergency.

[Dinner]

Yeah, the Chilian one was 9.4 or something. You can only get one that high in a subduction zone and other then the Pacific Northwest those aren't any where in the US. Even in the PNW it is a very slow subduction zone which is very shallow so it isn't going under very fast.

[Asher]

What a boring earthquake...

[Dinner]

Yeah, it kind of shows how strict building codes and strong enforcement of those building codes can really make a huge difference in an earthquake. I hope our libertarian members remember that because the Haiti quake and the Baja quake were both about the same size but one produced massive damage and death while the other didn't amount to much of anything.

[giblets]

Tyrannical government won't let me live in a death trap.

[Theben]

Have fun with your slow slide into the ocean...

[Dinner]

The latest news is that 25,000 people are made homeless in Mexicali, BC (Mexico) but not a single person was made homeless in California (which has cities starting just 16 miles north of Mexicali). Libertarians pay attention! The main reason there were buildings falling down in Mexico and 25,000 people made homeless while just 16 miles away there was literally no reportable damage was because of government mandated building codes. Yes, better engineering does indeed mean virtually no death or little property damage while weak building codes or enforcement mean lots of people dying and property being destroyed. The evil government saves lives again.

[Dinner]

I'm still shocked. That evil government regulation doing exactly what it is supposed to do; saving lives and preventing corners from being cut by for profit companies who would love to save a buck even if it meant someone dying a decade later.

Let's hear it to a strong building code and strong enforcement of government regulations. California is just about the last America state where we can still expect such good service from government.

[Asher]

No one cares about building regulations.

[Dinner]

I found a couple pictures:

I've had a chance to look around and both of those pictures were in Mexicali on the Mexican side of the border. That still sucks but it shows how Mexico needs to tighten up it's building codes.