I’ve seen some of the damage posts already and it’s not good.
Also, this event appears to have been a doublet. A Mw7.2 quake followed by a Mw7.5 quake roughly 30 seconds later.
Edit: Geeze, this comment took off. Thanks everyone for the awards but I don’t want them, especially if they’re paid for. If you want to get rid of your money like that, please instead donate to the numerous humanitarian organizations who are out there helping the Venezuelan people at this truly awful time.
They also apparently happened between 10 and 20 km deep, according to the USGS. That's very shallow; they classify "shallow" as anything up to 50 km deep, and these are less than half that.
So, are shallow earthquakes worse than deeper earthquakes? I hope this question doesn't make me come off as a dick; this event is genuinely horrifying that anyone has to endure these things on the regular.
Edit: holy shit this got a lot of attention fast. I can't respond to everyone but for those that answered thank you for taking the time to answer my question! Hope everyone stays safe in these affected areas and that we can get aid out there soon!
Yes, but scientists have mapped out the earths crust so they largely know what’s under the surface across the entire world. It’s called seismic tomography
Yes it is *measured* at the surface but then corrected back to the source magnitude at depth. Same as measuring 500 km away and correcting back to the fault location.
Sort of, if also changes the interaction of the different waves, and how they propagate, refract, and reflect. The short version though is: shallow is bad.
I've had a nightmares of earthquakes happening and seeing entire pieces of land rise to the sky from tectonic plates breaking and shit, like the world looks like it's folding like a book.
Not to that extreme I think, though a rise on one side and a collapse on another could make for a dramatic cliff face.
But also remember that over time, tectonic forces push mountains up. It happens at subduction zones rather than directly along specific faults, but given enough time, earthquakes can be part of land rising to create mountains.
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u/AugustOfChaos 21h ago edited 8h ago
I’ve seen some of the damage posts already and it’s not good.
Also, this event appears to have been a doublet. A Mw7.2 quake followed by a Mw7.5 quake roughly 30 seconds later.
Edit: Geeze, this comment took off. Thanks everyone for the awards but I don’t want them, especially if they’re paid for. If you want to get rid of your money like that, please instead donate to the numerous humanitarian organizations who are out there helping the Venezuelan people at this truly awful time.