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Post by Gay Titan on Jul 15, 2008 14:32:39 GMT
A strong earthquake struck Tuesday morning near Greek islands close to the Turkish coast, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
One person died, police said.
The 6.4-magnitude quake hit about 40 miles (64 km) southwest of the Dodecanese Islands, a series of Greek islands in the Mediterranean Sea closer to the Turkish coast than to the Greek mainland, the survey said.
The quake happened at 6:26 a.m. local time (11:26 p.m. ET).
A 56-year-old woman died after slipping and hitting her head while racing downstairs to get out of her house, according to a police spokesman in Rhodes, a city in the Dodecanese Islands.
Authorities were concerned that another stronger earthquake would occur.
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Post by Galadriel on Jul 15, 2008 16:10:54 GMT
I hope it stays with that one Earthquake, Greece has suffered enough of those the past few years
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Post by Hildor on Jul 15, 2008 16:31:59 GMT
I'm afraid it won't stay with one earthquake...for ages... btw I had this as a question on my geography-exam. The teacher showed me an article of earthquakes in Athens. The question was: "How could this happen?" I opened my atlas, said there was a Greek plate (or Greek-Turkish plate, don't remember exactly), and the question was answered correctly.
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Post by Elliot Kane on Jul 15, 2008 18:31:41 GMT
Cool map, Hildor *** Is it me, or is the amount of tectonic activity increasing, recently? Normally there's 1 or 2 quakes or tidal waves or whatever every year, but this year we've had a few already...
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Post by Hildor on Jul 15, 2008 19:57:37 GMT
Hm I don't know. What I do know is that we tend to react too fast on symptoms of things that take lots and lots of more time than our miserably short lives. We may be frightened by changes in elements of nature that seem to be devastating, but that are in fact just normal coincidince within the width of changes that really can happen in those elements. A good "virtual" example can be global warming: (Please note that this is a virtual example. I am just using the element "earth temperature" to give an example of how we could mistake coincidince for disastrous change and I'm not referring to what is happening in reality now. Neither am I expressing my opinion on global warming. In fact, I still have to form an opinion on that.) The temperature of the earth varies troughout time (talking about lots and lots of time). It goes up and down, up and down, up and down troughout the time periods; just like a sinus: (Don't look at the x-axis scale)The only thing is, temperature changes don't follow a perfect sinus pattern. There can be coincidal changes. A few hot summers that follow eachother, or a few very cold winters for example. After that, the temerature changes follow more or less the regular path again. Now the mistake we humans make is: not taking enough time to notice what is really happening. In comparison to the temperature changes, our lives are miserably short. And therefore we make mistakes on judging the changes in the natural element "temperature". A row of hot summers can make us go "zomg earth's gonna burn!" But in the meanwhile this row was just a coincidence and earth is starting to cool down (on the graph we would be somewhere between 0 and Umax, descending). Or a row of cold winters can make us go "zomg freezing to death! ice age!" But in the meanwhile this row is just again a coincidence and earth is starting to warm up (on the graph we would be somewhere between Umin and 0, ascending). If major changes in nature take so much time that coincidal changes would take as long as (or even more than) a human life, we make mistakes in judging them. And that's what's making me very reluctant on judging natural symptoms. That is why I don't have an opinion on global warming yet and why I'm not eager to say that tectonic activity has increased (dramaticly). P.S.: Such behavior has ofcourse a downside. What if we are indeed right and have waited too long with forming an opinion? What if we indeed burn or freeze to death while we are still calculating wether the rising/falling temperature is coincidence or not...
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Post by Elliot Kane on Jul 15, 2008 21:55:47 GMT
Completely agree
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Post by LaFille on Jul 16, 2008 5:03:05 GMT
I'm reluctant to think that tectonic activity has increased on a wide scale or as a mid or long term pattern. Within the scope of these past few years in comparison with the previous few, very possible though, I don't know.
However, I disagree with putting tectonic activity and global warming (climate change) in the same bag, because those are two dynamic systems that work very differently and that our activities have a most likely minimal interaction with the first while they have big ones with the second. Denying that interaction would be lacking of the responsibility that should inherently go with the power that our technical prowesses allow us to use and would be keeping that short-sighted attitude while we're capable of better... IMHO.
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