This week, once again, we witnessed just how incredibly lucky we are as a species. An extremely rare Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) THE MOST POWERFUL IN DECADES and travelling faster than 3,000 km/per second which compares to the Carrington Event in 1859 was ejected from our Sun and would easily have taken down all of earth's satellites in space, along with the internet and electricity grid here on Earth. . . However, once again the 'DEATH RAY' missed us!
Last night, a very powerful, shallow (22km deep) magnitude 7.0 earthquake rocked the Kermadec Islands, it was already the 4th major quake, (mag 6 or higher) to hit the islands so far this year. However, what is so special about this powerful quake is, it was recorded in the middle of a solar storm pounding our magnetosphere. See the map above. . .
Credit Earthwindmap and USGS.
Well folks, there we go, for the third time in less than a month a major quake, (mag 6 or higher) has rock 'n rolled' in, or around an active cyclone. Early this morning a very powerful mag 6.9 rocked the Kermadec Islands north of New Zealand and was the third major quake in this area in the last three days. What is extremely interesting is this mornings powerful quake is the fact it occurred in the middle of two cyclones Kevin and Judy. . .
This unusual pattern has become a regular occurrence in 2023. For instance, yesterday for the second time this month, a major quake struck an area during a cyclone. Yesterday at around 19:00 hrs, (UTC) a powerful magnitude 6.5 major quake, (mag 6 or higher) rocked the West coast of the South Pacific island Vanuatu at the same time the island was being pounded by Tropical Cyclone KEVIN-23, see map below.
Credit Earthwindmap and USGS. Once again a major quake coincides with another geological occurrence!
For the second time this month, a major quake struck an area during a cyclone. Yesterday at around 19:00 hrs, (UTC) a powerful magnitude 6.5 major quake, (mag 6 or higher) rocked the West coast of the South Pacific island Vanuatu at the same time the island was being pounded by Tropical Cyclone KEVIN-23, see map above.
Just sixteen days ago, a powerful magnitude of 6.1 was recorded in the Kermadec Islands, above North Island, New Zealand during the arrival of Cyclone Gabrielle, see map below.
We had another very strong quake early this morning and I haven't seen anything about it anywhere on MSM. The quake was recorded as a magnitude of 7.4 on the RSOE disaster map but has been officially reported as a very powerful, shallow, magnitude of 6.8 by USGS. (why do they always reduce the size?)
The epicentre was close to the Tajikistan-Xinjiang border region, it is a baron landscape so luckily there should not be much damage and hopefully no casualties. The major quake, (mag 6 or higher) is very interesting though in its location. It is almost on the exact same horizontal longitude as the mag 7.8 quake which killed almost 50,000 people in Turkey and Syria recently. It's about 1700 miles East of the Turkey quake with Iran sandwiched exactly between both of them.
Yesterday I promised more major seismic activity in the coming days and we didn't have to wait for long. . And once again the quake coincided with another incredible geological occurrence, right in the middle of the arrival of Cyclone Gabrielle.
As I mentioned yesterday on January 9th this year, a very powerful magnitude 7.6 earthquake rocked Indonesia at precisely 18:47 UTC—Just 3 minutes later at 18:50 our Sun launched a powerful X-Class flare from sunspot AR3182! I have never seen these two powerful events so closely linked together before. Full story
This morning's major quake (mag 6 or higher) was the 7th major quake so far in February and the 18th of 2023.
New Zealand declared a state of emergency on Monday as Cyclone Gabrielle started to lash the North Island. People in several regions such as Northland and Auckland, the country's largest city, have been warned of a high risk of tidal flooding by the civil defence department.
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In a week of terrible consequences from the seismic activity and the powerful magnitude 7.8 killer quake in Turkey followed by a cluster of massive aftershocks this week, it is probably not surprising solar activity has got in on the act with our sun's 4th X-Class Flare yesterday, after all, solar and seismic activity are usually linked together.
Sunspot AR3190, (magnified above) the biggest sunspot in years and visible to the naked eye has so far failed to deliver. The impressive sunspot, more than 4 times larger than the earth has not ejected the massive X-Class solar flare many astronomers were hoping for.
However, yesterday, sunspots AR3192 and Ar3190 briefly introduced each other when a bolt of lightning connected the two sunspots together, see left, credit Spaceweather.com. . .
An enormous plasma discharge, more than 500,000 km long released from sunspot AR3192 ZIG-ZAGGED more than half a million km and zapped the massive sunspot AR3190.
Of course, high active solar energy is usually accompanied by major quake activity (mag 6 or higher) and the last few days have been no exception. This morning a very deep magnitude 6.3 quake rocked the Izu Islands near Japan, see the map below.
Earlier a magnitude of 6.0 was recorded in the Indonesia region of Nias. The two major quakes, (mag 6 or higher bring the total to 5 so far in 2023 with a very powerful magnitude of 7.6 which rocked Indonesia on Jan 9.
When space weather meets major seismic activity!
I have been blogging about quakes and spaceweather since 2008 but I have never witnessed this before. . .
This afternoon, a very powerful magnitude 7.6 earthquake rocked Indonesia at precisely 18:47 UTC—Just 3 minutes later at 18:50 our Sun launched a powerful X-Class flare from sunspot AR3182! I have never seen two powerful events so closely linked together before! I'm flabbergasted. . .
The powerful major quake, (mag 6 or higher) rocked the Pacific Ring Of Fire, the second in as many days. This one was a magnitude 7.6 struck Pulau Pulau Tanimbar, in Indonesia.
2023 has its first major quake, (mag 6 or higher) and it's a very shallow (27 km) powerful, magnitude of 7.0 just 23 km North West of Port Olry, Vanuatu in the South Pacific Ocean. The quake was first recorded as a mag 7.2 but has since been reduced by USGS. The major quake has been followed by a mag 4.8 aftershock.
According to NOAA, there has been no tsunami warning, advisory or threat.
The mag 7 is the first major quake of 2023—2022 finished with a total of 128 major quakes, (mag 6 or higher) which is slightly less than the average annual total this century.
The biggest quake last year was a mag 7.6 in Papua New Guinea in September and a mag 7.6 in Mexico also in September.
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