Re: Did anyone watch the two parter on TV; 10.5?

Skywise wrote:
"Belba Grubb" <trungsisterfan@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in
news:1148634619.334926.304450@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:

<Snipola>
(um---I forget the math of it now,
but based on an undergraduate geophysics class, could the earth even
withstand a magnitude 10.5 shock?).
<Snipola>

http://www.skywise711.com/SeismicFAQ/SeismicFAQMain.html#IIenergy


Thanks, Brian. That is an excellent page. What I was thinking of,
though, was something else. All that is just for starters. Will have
to somehow do a refresher course in undergraduate-level geophysics to
find what I had in mind. It's not a question of faulting the Earth in
half, and I'm not sure that "shatter" is the correct word for
something, that if taken overall, has a consistency somewhat closer to
toothpaste than granite (another vivid image from that class, back in
the 1980s). But there is an upper limit beyond which earth could break
up -- as I recall, though, there don't seem to be geological mechanisms
available, as far as we know today (or knew back in the early 1980s)
that can release that much energy.

Actually the number 9 sticks in my memory, but as we have seen more
than once, some measured magnitude 9.* quakes up to 9.5 in 1960, while
terribly destructive to human life, haven't come close to breaking up
the planet. I seriously wonder if there could physically ever be a
magnitude 10.* quake, or if the upper limit is in the upper levels of
the 9th magnitude somewhere.

This is interesting, though not an expert site:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richter_scale

At least it gives a theoretical magnitude 10 equivalent. Don't know
how accurate that is, though.

Barb
----------
GEOLOGY, n.
The science of the earth's crust -- to which, doubtless, will be
added that of its interior whenever a man shall come up garrulous out
of a well. The geological formations of the globe already noted are
catalogued thus: The Primary, or lower one, consists of rocks, bones or
mired mules, gas-pipes, miners' tools, antique statues minus the nose,
Spanish doubloons and ancestors. The Secondary is largely made up of
red worms and moles. The Tertiary comprises railway tracks, patent
pavements, grass, snakes, mouldy boots, beer bottles, tomato cans,
intoxicated citizens, garbage, anarchists, snap-dogs and fools.
--Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

.

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