Indonesia struck by earthquake.

Yes I was, sorry if I didn't make it clear before. I was thinking that the loss of the mass of a huge layer of ice at the poles might have a effect on stresses elsewhere on the globe.

Anyone any thoughts, links?

McTag - methinks you will get more and more learned replies to that question if you open a new thread with that as the question.

Thanks BBB for your reasoning.

I am a member or whatever the heck it is of Oxfam...hmmmm -

At least our government has given 10 million so far....

I give to Oxfam as well as Medicines Sans Frontiers. I believe both are on the scene now.

I opted for Red Cross

Was a butterfly seeking shelter in the Yarrow bush in the southeast corner of my front yard. I opened the front door and Sally, my dog, ran around the Yarrow sniffing about and most likely caused the butterfly to dart freneticly towards the interior of the shrub (not George Bush) a vortex of soft air arrose creating a disharmonium of latent vibrations. Somewhere in Yugoslavia a vase toppled from a fireplace mantel while a volcano erupted in the Indian Ocean. I blame Sally for the deaths of 10's of thousands.(as well as the broken vase)

source

That is very interesting.

Animals would have headed for safety before the tsunami hit: the entire island of Sumatra was displaced by 100 feet (preliminary measurement) and animals would have felt the earthquake before people did.

McTag - the effect of decreased pressure on earth strata has been measured on land where "pemanent" ice cover has disappeared over the last century - am most familiar with the Alpine region, where it's certainly the case. Most quakes there are too small for us to notice but they do register on instruments.

I've no idea if the same applies to Antarctica, but it might - see in the previous map how the only other low-gravity area is the region where Antarctica split from Australia, just as India split from Africa.

P.S. sorry, the gravity map was 2 pages back, not 1.

This time-adjusted map shows also the earthquake south of Australia:



http://earthquake.usgs.gov/recenteqsww/

Drillers and the explosive charges they use can't move tectonic plates, but they can and do destroy delicate echolocator sonars in the brains of dolphins and whales - no wonder the poor animals got beached.....

Just heard on the news some island the size of Calif., moved 100 feet.

Not only did in move islands
Link


It shortend the earth's rotation
link

Doctors without borders
I just made a second $100 donation to Doctors Without Borders, a great organization. Below is the latest report of their on the ground services.
---BBB

Doctors Without Borders web site is experiencing very heavy traffic
All updated activity reports on what Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is doing to help in South Asia will be posted below as they are released. If you would like to make a donation to MSF, please use this link:

https://www.kintera.org/site/apps/ka/sd/donorcustom.asp?c=foIJKQMFF&b=89844

Donate securely by credit card or donate by phone at 1-888-392-0392.

EMERGENCY UPDATE: Aid Operations to Disaster Areas in South Asia

December 28, 2004 - Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) emergency medical teams are assessing the needs of populations in the areas hit hardest by the earthquake and tsunami in South Asia. MSF is airlifting more than 60 tons of medical, surgical, and water-and-sanitation equipment to Sri Lanka and Indonesia. Currently, MSF teams are on the ground in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and Thailand.

Sri Lanka

MSF has sent 12 humanitarian aid workers, including doctors, surgeons, nurses, and logisticians, to Sri Lanka. Additional aid workers are on stand-by. A full charter plane with 30 tons of aid supplies is leaving Wednesday for Colombo, Sri Lanka. In addition to relief materials, among the cargo is all the equipment and supplies to set up a hospital to assist 10,000 people for a period of three months.

One of the MSF teams is conducting an assessment of the situation in the eastern coastal town of Batticaloa, where the United Nations estimates that more that 650 people have died and 40,000 more have been left homeless. Another MSF team is heading to Ampara, also in the eastern province. At least 5,700 people in the district were killed and more than 90,000 have been displaced by the disaster.

Indonesia

MSF is airlifting 32 tons of medical and sanitation supplies to Medan, in northern Sumatra, which is just south of Banda Aceh. The cargo includes generators, water bladders, and tanks, plastic sheeting, mosquito nets, chlorination kits, and a hospital tent. An eight-person team arrived in Jakarta today with three-and-half tons of medical supplies to re-supply two hospitals and 20 health posts in the area.

"Malaria and dengue fever will be big problems in the current situation," said Jan Weuts, who oversees MSF's emergency operations in Indonesia. "We are specifically looking at limiting the risk of these diseases and driving up the already horrible death toll, in addition to preparing for what we know to expect from our previous experiences of the aftermath of earthquakes and floods."

India

An MSF team is conducting an assessment in Chennai, the capital city of India's Tamil Nadu state, and further south to Nagapattinam district and the city of Pondicherry. The coastal area has been severely affected and families are still searching for missing people. There has been a strong response from the government and local communities.

Thailand, Malaysia, Myanmar/Burma

In addition to these aid operations, MSF is continuing an assessment of the southern coast of Thailand, including in Phuket, the resort area hit by the disaster. MSF also dispatched two physicians to identify any humanitarian needs on Penang Island in Malaysia. MSF has sent a team to evaluate the situation in the coastal areas between Myeik and Kawthong in the far southeast of Myanmar/Burma.

The governments of countries affected by the tsunami are providing official information - casualty figures, contact numbers, aid needs etc. - on the following websites:

Department of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Indonesia
Embassy of Indonesia, Washington DC
Emergency Info, Government of Sri Lanka
Embassy of Sri Lanka, Washington DC
Sri Lanka Government Information Department
National Disaster Management, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India
Embassy of India, Washington DC
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kingdom of Thailand
President's Office, Government of Maldives
Government of Myanmar

http://www.csr.utexas.edu/grace/gallery/animations/world_gravity/world_gravity_rm.html

This shows the hole in the Indian Ocean even more clearly than the map; the 3D model comes from the best civilian satellite.

Btw - What were the Indians thinking when they said they had no warning? They do have seismographs (hard to miss Richter 9) and it took many hours for the tsunami to reach their coastlines.

Note: That's gravity gradients, not terrain contours; you have to rotate the geoid to see the other site.

There has been some discussion of this on the net and in various newspapers/programs. It seems there are two problems. First getting the information from the seismograph to the beach and second educating people to run from the beach not to it to watch the show. I have a brother who lives in Hawaii where these are much more common and where a warning system exists, and he say's the second point is still a problem. Tsunami's are much less common in the Bay Of Bengal /Indian Ocean than in the Pacific and up to now a warning system and education has not been a priority.