John WoodheadEARLIER this month there were around 16 small earthquakes close to the town of La Mojonera in western Almería in a period of two days.
The earthquakes ranged in size from 1.5 on the Richter scale up to two larger quakes at 3.6 early in the morning on 4 November 2010 and at 4.1 around lunchtime on 5 November 2010. Jacqui and I were woken up by the early morning earthquake but didn’t notice the one the following day which is a little strange given that it was a bigger event.
Following the earthquakes a friend of ours, Jules, had a look on the internet for information about earthquakes in the area. She found a map of Spain highlighting areas most likely to be hit by earthquakes (courtesy of the Spanish National Geographic Association).
As you can see the province of Almería is in the red area on the map.
When we first started to live in Almerimar I didn´t know anything at all about the area being an earthquake zone. For the first five years I didn’t notice any at all. It is only in the last 12 months that I have become more aware of the subject.
Searching on the internet I found the article here about the possibility that the earthquake off the coast of Almería in 1522 may have caused a tsunami.
One fact that consoles me a little is the quote from an expert in one of the Spanish newspapers earlier this month. He said that these small tremors are a good thing as they are releasing energy that might otherwise build up into a bigger event.
You did’nt know there were earthquakes in that area – you are living within sight of the Sierra Nevada mountains, they are young mountains.
Don’t you know that they are the interface between two tectonic plates and that they are going to get higher and they will do this by massive earthquakes – it’s only a question of when.
Have you never heard of the massive earthquake that destroyed Agadir in Morrocco – you are on the same fault line.
Before coming here I researched about the climate in various parts of Spain and inspected various golf courses before setting on Almerimar. I also did a lot of research about living and working in Spain.
However I didn´t even think about earthquakes. It is only now that I am looking into the subject a little more.
We experienced a minor quake during one of our visits to Granada. We were in a hotel room on an upper floor next to the lift and the creaking noises coming from the lift shaft for a few seconds after the quake were very eerie! It was all anyone could talk about at breakfast!
We are living in what is known as a geological quake time frame.
No one in government is going to tell you the truth of this especially as Spain has areas at great risk.
There is a huge cliff in the Canaries which is one day going to slip into the deep waters that surround the Canaries – when this happens who will feel the effects? Not the Canaries but – Florida and indeed much of the southern Atlantic States coastline.
When this shift of a vast amount of material happens and it will, it will create a giant tsunami and will take out a serious piece of Florida in it’s path.
The same can be said for the San Andreas fault in California – hell, we all have to die from something.
I saw something on the internet today that there was one in Mijas at 3.3 on the Richter scale this morning and most people there didn´t notice it.
John I don’t think you have a clue about how earthquakes are measured – once you get to 7 or 8 on the Richter scale – you’ll know all right and at 9 or 10 it won’t matter, youll be dead.
lol
Two quotes from Wikipedea on this subject…..
“The Richter magnitude scale, also known as the local magnitude (ML) scale, assigns a single number to quantify the amount of seismic energy released by an earthquake. It is a base-10 logarithmic scale obtained by calculating the logarithm of the combined horizontal amplitude (shaking amplitude) of the largest displacement from zero on a particular type of seismometer (Wood–Anderson torsion). So, for example, an earthquake that measures 5.0 on the Richter scale has a shaking amplitude 10 times larger than one that measures 4.0. The effective limit of measurement for local magnitude ML is about 6.8”
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“A logarithmic scale is a scale of measurement that uses the logarithm of a physical quantity instead of the quantity itself.
A simple example is when increments on the vertical axis of a chart are labeled 1, 10, 100, 1000, instead of 1, 2, 3, 4.”
Almeria and surrounding areas are having hundreds of minor tremors every week, over the last month Almeria has(according to a local paper)had over 400 tremors. Can anyone confirm these facts? The major fault line they tell me is Carboneras and Cape de Gato. Any comments.
We recently bought a house in the mountains near Adra and knew nothing about earthquakes till one hit us on the second day and moved the bed! It is quite frightening at first, but one gets used to it. At least none of the walls are cracked, but then they are 24 inches thick and have withstood quakes for 70 years!