CAN WE EVER GET A 10 MAGNITUDE EARTHQUAKE?

Time magazine this morning had this article:  What are the Five Strongest Earthquakes Ever Recorded?

• #6 was, of course, that massive Russian Kamchatka earthquake of 8.8 magnitude just experienced at 8:25AM local time on July 30.  Amazingly enough, there was only one death, but this was a woman in Japan while evacuating.  So there was none caused by the earthquake itself.  

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  There was another 8.8 earthquake, Chile in 2010, which killed around 600, including 25 still missing.  So there is a tie for #6.  I happened to be in Amsterdam, Netherlands that day, but still wrote an article for the Huffington Post entitled Hawaii Tsunami?  You can click on that link to read the whole article, but I will provide a beginning here:

I'm on an around the world odyssey, which you can follow through my HuffPost postings. Well, my most exciting day is happening right in front of me watching the 8.8 Chile earthquake cataclysm on CNN from the Hotel Pulitzer in Amsterdam. Thus, from half a world away, I'm missing what I've long imagined: a graphic view of a major tsunami decimating Honolulu from my penthouse.

Let me clarify, for that is the last thing I would want. Fortunately enough, the latest scientific data seem to suggest a tsunami perhaps from one foot to seven feet striking Hawaii. But you never know, for the 8.5 Chile earthquake of 1922 caused havoc in Hilo Harbor, and 8.8 is three times more powerful. The underwater topography surrounding Hilo seems to amplify the effect, as history has shown.

The media have reported that the Chile earthquake was 63 times more powerful than the 7.0 Haiti quake, while others have mentioned a thousand times stronger. The reason for this discrepancy can be attributed to a change in the system. The Richter Scale was long the standard, and it turns out that 8.8 is about 60 times the "shake," or horizontal amplitude, of a 7.0 earthquake. However, the current official reporting system is Moment Magnitude, and while the power factor from a 7.0 to 8.0 increases by a factor of 10 using the Richter Scale, you need to multiply by 31.6 for the Moment Magnitude Scale. Thus, for the latter, a 9.0 is 31.6 times 31.6, or 999 (call this a thousand) times the expended energy of a 7.0 earthquake.

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  So Moment Magnitude replaced the Richter scale in the late 1970s.
• The earthquake which killed the most, 830,000, occurred in Shaanxi, China in 1556.  This was of magnitude 8.0.  Next most up to 655,000, also caused by an 8.0 earthquake, and too in China, Tangshan in 1976.

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  This Time article indicated that death tolls are not directly related to magnitude.  You need to factor in the density of the population in the area that is struck.  For example, that same 7.0 Haitian earthquake of 2010 is mentioned, where 316,000 died or all still missing, the third deadliest since 1950, does not make the top five list for largest quakes.

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  So, anyway, the top five.  
• #5  Kamchatka, Russia, 4November1952, 9.0.  73 years ago, was the first 9.0  magnitude ever recorded.  10,000 were killed.  Damages to Hawaii were about a million dollars, equal to $12 million today.

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  #4  Tohoku, Japan, 11March2011, 9.1.  This is the one that crippled Japan.  Read details in my HuffPo.  Death toll of around 18,000.
• #3  Sumatra, Indonesia, 26December2004, 9.1.  Killed 230,000 in 13 countries.  $10 billion in losses.

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  #2  College Fjord, east of Anchorage, Alaska, United States, 27March1964, 9.2.  Only 130 killed because of the sparse population.  Damage of $24 billion in current dollars.  The reason why so many earthquakes occur in this region is that the Pacific plate slides beneath the North American plate, leading to extreme tectonic instability.  The North American plate rose by 30 feet.

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  #1  100 miles off the coast of Biobio, Chile, 22May1960, 9.5.  40% of buildings in the city of Valdivia were destroyed.  Up to 6000 died.  35-foot waves got to Hilo, Hawaii and 18 foot tsunami hit Honshu, Japan.

• Watch this video of the 10 biggest earthquakes in all history.

Note that all the above are relatively recently, and that video just above only went as far back as recent recorded history.  Surely, in the 4.54 billion years of Planet Earth there were larger ones.   Researchers from the University of Southampton say that the largest earthquake ever, at least when humans were around, was a 9.5 magnitude earthquake that hit northern Chile 3800 years ago.  Interesting article with some spectacular photos.

How high in magnitude can an earthquake get?

• Google AI Overview doesn't know, but says about a 20 moment magnitude earthquake.

A magnitude 20 earthquake is not physically possible on Earth, but if it were to occur, it would be catastrophic, releasing enough energy to potentially break the planet apart. It would trigger massive tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, and widespread destruction. Such an event could only be caused by an impact of a massive asteroid.

• Google AI Overview says about a 15 magnitude.  Watch this video.

A magnitude 15 earthquake is far beyond anything observed on Earth and would likely result in catastrophic and planet-altering consequences, including evaporating all the water, significantly disrupting the Earth's crust, and potentially causing the planet to break apart.

• Here is another video of a 15 magnitude earthquake.  Very educational.  Only 3 minutes long.  
• What if a Richter 10 Scale Earthquake hit?

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  So I asked Google AI Overview, is a magnitude 10 earthquake possible?  
• The answer was no because a 10 would require a fault line far larger than any known on Earth.  The size of an earthquake is directly related to the length and area of the fault that ruptures.
• On a deeper search, the answer was theoretically possible but highly unlikely.
• Here is a video anyway.
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  The United States Geological Survey also said no, earthquakes of magnitude 10 or larger cannot happen.  When asked if the science today can predict earthquakes, the answer was no.  Also no was the whether animals could predict earthquakes.  Finally, California will not fall into the ocean.

Well, there was a 2014 movie, 10.0 Earthquake, released in 2014.  Fracking jiggled the San Andreas Fault.  Rotten Tomatoes audiences gave it a 15% rating.  Reviewers did not even bother to participate.  Movie was so bad that you watch the whole film by clicking on 10.0 Earthquake.

There was a worse 2011 TV film, relating to the Yellowstone caldera called Super Eruption.  How bad?  Rotten Tomatoes audience score of 6%.

Going back further to 2005, there is the BBC Supervolcano, also involving Yellowstone National Park.  Actually got an almost decent 69 audience rating from the audience.  Click on Suprervolcano to see the entire film.

I keep finding them, but there is a 2022 TV movie about a supervolcano that threatened the island of Hawaii, called Super Volcano.  How bad is it?  Well, no Rotten Tomatoes review, but you can see the entire film by clicking on Super Volcano.

Completed unrelated to the above is a book called Eruption, by Michael Crichton and James Patterson, about a super volcano called Kilauea on the Big Island.  I posted on this publication about a year ago.  Bought it for my Apple 16 Pro, and just started reading it.

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