From Deseret News archives:
Asia quake dwarfs Utah's expected 'big one'
It would take about 180 simultaneous 7.5 magnitude earthquakes to equal Sunday's 9.0 level quake, says Walter Arabasz, director of the University of Utah's seismograph stations.
"We strain our imaginations to comprehend what this means in terms of energy released," says Arabasz, who offers this analogy: It would take 2 million 23-kiloton bombs like the one detonated by the United States in 1946 on Bikini Atoll to release the same energy as a magnitude 9.0 earthquake.
Earthquake faults along the rim of the Pacific Ocean basin and around parts of the Indian Ocean are much longer than those in the Wasatch range, Arabasz says, and therefore can accumulate and release much more energy. Utah will likely never experience a quake worse than magnitude 7.5, according to Arabasz.
Currently, seismic scientists "just don't have earthquake prediction in our tool kit," Arabasz says. "In hindsight we realize that some earthquakes were preceded by small foreshocks," but not all foreshocks result in earthquakes.
Geologist Kerry Sieh of the California Institute of Technology said Sunday's quake was so strong, it probably jolted the planet's rotation. "It causes the planet to wobble a little bit, but it's not going to turn Earth upside down," Sieh said.
By Monday, according to the International Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii, some energy from Sunday's waves sifted into the Pacific Basin.
At Manzanillo, Mexico, waves rose more than 8 feet. Minor fluctuations were reported in New Zealand and Chile, where waves rose between 1 and 2 feet. In the United States, Hawaii reported almost no wave changes, while San Diego saw waves rise less than a foot.
"It's been a multi-ocean tsunami," said Stuart Weinstein, a geophysicist with the Pacific TsunamiWarning Center on Oahu. "It's probably the first multi-ocean tsunami since Krakatoa."
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