Earthquake Surprises Scientists

The weird news just continues to keep rolling in...baffling scientists.

The massive earthquake off Indonesia surprised scientists: Usually this type of jolt isn't this powerful.

The biggest earthquakes tend to occur in subduction zones where one plate of the Earth's crust dives under another. This grind produced the 2004 magnitude-9.1 Indian Ocean disaster and the magnitude-9 Japan quake last year.

Wednesday's magnitude-8.6 quake occurred along a strike-slip fault line similar to California's San Andreas Fault.

Scientists say it's rare for strike-slip quakes, in which blocks of rocks slide horizontally past each other, to be this large.

"A week ago, we wouldn't have thought we could have a strike-slip earthquake of this size. This is very, very large," said Kevin Furlong, a professor of geosciences at Penn State University.

So large, in fact, that the main shock went into the history books. Record-keeping by the USGS National Earthquake Information Center ranks Wednesday's shaker as the 11th largest since 1900.

Here;  http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4215425,00.html

Hmmmm.....a REALLY big earthquake along a fault that scientists hadn't figured was possible....I wonder if we can file this one under, "There will be earthquakes in various places..."

Also, it sure sounds like this could be a rather large birth pang.

Hat tip to Julie E.