Magnitude 6.9 earthquake in far Northern California

6.2 near Humboldt, according to someone on Facebook I'm connected with.

[quote] Remember those tile fish that had been washing up on the California coast?

We prefer to be called DOOMSDAY FISH.

It's more exciting.

Tsunami warning?

It happened at 10:44 . My alert came in at 10:48.

Official updates From National Tsunami Warning Center · Last updated 5 mins ago

A tsunami Warning is now in effect which includes the coastal areas of California and Oregon from Davenport, California (10 miles NW of Santa Cruz) to Douglas/Lane Line, Oregon (10 miles SW of Florence). - Event details: Preliminary magnitude 7.3 (Mwp) earthquake / Lat: 40.348, Lon: -124.733 at 2024-12-05T18:44:24 UTC Tsunami warnings mean that a tsunami with significant inundation is expected or occurring. Warnings indicate that widespread dangerous coastal flooding accompanied by powerful currents are possible and may continue for several hours after the initial wave arrival.

There are some widely varying estimates from initial 7.3 down to 6.0. Footage should be on Twitter and Bluesky soon.

There was a tsunami in my pool. Lost about 20 gallons of water.

Bay Area NBC....

Swinging office lights as far south as Sonoma. This is in Davis ~ 15 miles southwest of Sacramento. Didn't feel anything here and my animals didn't get weird.

Oh, the humanity R6!!!

You poor dear. What ever shall you do?

NOT THE POOL!!!

*rolling my eyes*

LA Times reporting 7 earthquake...

R9 is satire deficient. Now fuck off.

7.3 earthquake 45 miles SW of Eureka, CA (out in the water) according to tsunami.gov. Got a tsunami warning.

Weirdly, I didn't feel a thing and I'm on a fault line...we get little shakers here often. My dog didn't react at all.

Well—is there a tsunami? Could someone please check?

[quote] Well—is there a tsunami?

Only when I'm fucking in the pool!

They say move to higher ground but it’s not specific enough-I’m in flat lands of eastbay?

R13 = Bill Lumbergh

[quote] Well—is there a tsunami? Could someone please check?

Check what, whether there's a dolphin in my living room?

It's coming, according to tsunami.gov

I'd hate to be Crescent City right about now.

if i still lived in the Haight in SF, I'd be shitting a brick right now.

[quote] I'd hate to be Crescent City right about now.

Or ever.

A tsunami warning was issued Thursday morning following a 7.3 magnitude earthquake that struck 45 miles southwest of Eureka, Calif., the National Weather Service said in a bulletin.

“The National Weather Service has issued a TSUNAMI WARNING. A series of powerful waves and strong currents may impact coasts near you,” the alert read in the San Francisco Bay Area. “You are in danger. Get away from coastal waters. Move to high ground or inland now. Keep away from the coast until local officials say it is safe to return.”

I didn't feel anything from the earthquake here in San Francisco.

R6 left out the clause “”when Chrissy Metz did a cannonball into the deep end” in his post r9.

I hope that Bodega Bay is okay!

That place holds such special memories for me.

Oregonians....RUN....RUN....RUN..

Get ready for some knuckleheads charging to the beach to video the really big wave they heard was coming.

R27, a crowd has gathered at Fort Mason, SF to watch the incoming tsunami. I'd caution these people that 50 ft. isn't necessarily high enough.

So this is a tsunami tsunami?

Good heavens!

what a bunch of idiots. i read that a tsunami can reach 10 miles inland.

A rush to X to see what happened.

Yes, the water can travel far inland, but not above a certain elevation.

San Mateo County announces a 12:10 p.m. arrival.

@sanmateoco❗ALERT: National Weather Service has issued a tsunami warning. Expected arrival at 12:10 p.m. Avoid all beaches and low lying areas. Move to high ground immediately. Updates to follow. ❗

Upgraded to 7.0 Magnitude

BART shut down.

7 is big - hoping for the best up there. A lot of boat and marina damage to be expected - hoe that's all.

At least Biden is still the President, so if there's catastrophic damage the blue states can receive federal dollars.

7.0 is a decent size earthquake but glad it's no higher like the 2011 Japan quake and tsunami. That one was 9.1.

Berkeley: anyone west of 7th street told to evacuate

Stay safe, Californian/Oregon DLers

Sadly, I had the same thought, r37.

I'm nowhere near an area that will be affected, but I'm terrified about what's going going to happen in11 minutes. Hopefully, damage will be minimal.

it was originally rated as a 7.3. Now they've put it down to 7.0. Go to tsunami.gov and you'll see.

Looks like the tsunami warning was called off?

Tsunami is now cancelled!

Much ado about nothing.

Barely any shaking, and tiny waves lapping up on the shore.

*yawn*

What a non-story.

I can take a 7 easily!

[quote] 7 is big - hoping for the best up there. A lot of boat and marina damage to be expected - hoe that's all.

What did you call me?

is anyone going to tell the idiots gathered at Fort Mason?

I guess these folks are safe tgen.

And I got a permanent just for the occasion…

Did Charlton Heston and Ava Gardner get swept away in a sewer this time?

Trump intervened and made us all safe again.

[quote]Tsunami is now cancelled.

You sure about that?

r30 Eh, Darwin Awards.

There's got to be SOMETHING though, right? Some big waves?

That California 7 would be a Scranton 10.

Now that is over we can get back to Musk Rat declaring war on Social Security.

I'm near Sacramento. I got the notification, but I didn't feel anything at all. Now I know how Lindsey Graham feels when his rent boy has less than a 7 in his pants.

Well, that was a letdown. Here I was, expecting a huge tsunami in SF at 12:10 PT, and already the warning's been cancelled.

I had my swim camp on and everything.

Just a friendly reminder:

California, United States has had: (M1.5 or greater)

98 earthquakes in the past 24 hours

186 earthquakes in the past 7 days

643 earthquakes in the past 30 days

7,966 earthquakes in the past 365 days

Still waiting on the big one.

Is that usual activity for that region, r60? I can't even imagine how scary it must be living with the threat of earthquake looming at any time.

USGS shows it was a 7.0, that's not minor.

r62 We yawn.

Out of all of those recorded earthquakes at r60, i've felt maybe 3 over the past year. i didn't even feel this one, and I'm in Sonoma County, which is the next county north of us.

I'm not that phased by them, but I grew up in Southern CA and have spent all but 13 of my 55 years in CA.

[quote] Is that usual activity for that region

Yes. It's not like we feel these though. I've lived in California all my life and the only scary one was the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. I was living a few miles from the epicenter and the rolling and heaving ground seemed to last forever. When it stopped 63 people were dead, some of them crushed between concrete freeway levels. It was horrific.

I'm in Sacramento and felt none. But thankfully maybe something about the direction of waves and our natural California seascape kept them from the SF Bay Area? The harshest direction of the waves went outward to the Pacific.

Maybe waves towards the SF Bay weren't so strong because the came laterally from N. Cal and a non pushing waves toward shore.

R66

I felt Loma Prieto in my Beverly Hills office.

We did feel the 1994 Northridge quake down in Oceanside (epicenter was in Los Angeles). It was quite jolting and set off a shit-ton of car alarms in our apartment complex.

We went to Disneyland the next day (it was planned for a birthday) after confirming that it was open/rides were safe and operational, and there were absolutely no lines. It was great.

I don't mean to make light of it at all. Just my experience.

Thank you for the answers. It just blows my mind how much activity is going on all the time in the active parts of the world. I had no idea. I'm fascinated by the site linked at r60.

Loma Prieta at r66 - how incredibly awful.

R62

Every time I remember that I felt LP in Los Angeles, I think about how awful it must have been to live through it up there. For months afterwards, no one would idle under an overpass in LA waiting for a light because of that picture above and the loss of life.

Slightly off-topic: my dad *felt* the 1985 Mexico City earthquake in his Houston office - he was with a patient and the window blinds swayed back and forth for a few moments. That was an 8.0 and killed over 5000 people.

This is what happens when we mess with Mother Earth:

While not on or near any fault like San Francisco or Los Angeles, Mexico City is also vulnerable to earthquakes. The main reason for this is the surface geology of the area, especially the downtown area. The city was originally built on an island in the middle of Lake Texcoco, and Aztec rulers built dikes to prevent flooding[6] while Spanish colonial rulers later drained the lakes in a massive hydraulic project (known as the Desagüe) in response to major periodic flooding. The near surface geology of this area is classified into three sections: the old lake bed which is soft clay from volcanic ash with a high water content, a piedmont area, much of which is capped by 5 to 30 meters of lava less than 2,500 years old, and an old river delta area.[3]

I've lived in Northern California for 38 years. If the quake is small (less than 3.0), you're usually not going to feel it if you're moving around. I've felt a lot of small earthquakes over the years, but usually if I'm sitting down or in bed.

I had only been in California for two years when the Loma Prieta earthquake happened, so I got my earthquake baptism by fire with that one. That one was scary indeed. And even after the initial quake, we had significant aftershocks for days afterward, which was really unnerving.

For me, the worst part of experiencing an earthquake is that feeling when it first hits. You sit there for a few moments and ask yourself, "Is this gonna get worse? Is this the big one? Should I take cover?" The biggest earthquake I've felt since the '89 earthquake was the Napa quake in 2015. It hit at about 3:30 in the morning, and although it was miles away from me here in San Francisco, it was a big jolt that woke me up, and I lay there in bed for a few seconds as the shaking got stronger, then I bolted out of bed and ran to a doorway.

They're still having aftershocks, around 200 so far. That doesn't seem good.

R74 That's normal, especially after a quake of that magnitude. They'll likely have aftershocks for weeks.

I have many aftershocks after experiencing a 7!

Turns out yesterday's quake was caused by the Mendocino strike-slip fault which is not known to produce tsunamis. Strike-slip means the movement is horizontal which displaces less water than a vertical quake, where one teutonic plate is lifted above the other. It's the latter type of quake that will produce the big one which they predict will destroy Seattle, Vancouver and the Oregon coast as well as inland areas due to the massive tsunami. This big one is coming from the Juan de Fuca plate, which c'mon, should be called the Juan de Fuckya.

I didn't know until today that as bad as Loma Prieta was, the San Andreas fault is not going to have a magnitude over 7.0, so the experts are much more concerned with the other fault, which can do a 9.0.

Thanks for that information, r77. . I grew up in California during a time in the '70s when a lot of old brick construction was torn down and replaced with up- to-code (uglier) buildings. My junior high was one of them. I was in the inaugural class in 1977. Throughout all of our earthquake drills and stuff we were taught in science classes, San Andreas was always the big bogeyman fault. I honestly don't think Juan de Fuca was ever mentioned.

R78 Right? This is the first I've heard of it and I was BORN in San Francisco. Maybe because of the 1906 earthquake we assumed San Andreas was the mother of all faults.

I think I recognized the name Juan de Fuca, probably from once having read it on a list of faults, but couldn't tell you what it is until now, r79. And I certainly didn't know it has much more deadly potential than San Andreas. Maybe it's something geologists have come to better understand in the last 50 years or so?

[quote] Maybe it's something geologists have come to better understand in the last 50 years or so?

I'm pretty sure that's why. Plate teutonics wasn't even accepted by geologists until the mid-60s.

It wasn't until the late-80s & 1990s that geologists began to understand what was going on with Juan de Fuca/Cascadia Subduction Zone, and the type of catastrophic earthquakes (and tsunamis) it is capable of producing. This is an excellent (if not mildly terrifying) read.

The Shoalwater Bay Tribe in Tokeland (ha!) is ready:

Thank you for posting the article, r82. Only about a third of the way through it.

[QUOTE]The truly worrisome figures in this story are these: Thirty years ago, no one knew that the Cascadia subduction zone had ever produced a major earthquake. Forty-five years ago, no one even knew it existed.

Wow. California has several decades leg up on the PNW in terms of earthquake preparedness. Just reading what little I have makes me worry that this week's quake is a foreshock of a bigger one.

[quote]Thank you for posting the article, [R82]. Only about a third of the way through it.

Yeah, I meant to add that it's fairly *long*...so grab a cup of coffee (or perhaps something stronger), and settle-in.

R83, I hope that's high enough. One of the reasons Japan's tsunami had such a high death toll is because people actually did shelter in evacuation towers. But the water surge ended up being higher.

Here's an explanation why people died in the evacuation towers.

[QUOTE]For decades, seismologists had believed that Japan could not experience an earthquake stronger than magnitude 8.4. In 2005, however, at a conference in Hokudan, a Japanese geologist named Yasutaka Ikeda had argued that the nation should expect a magnitude 9.0 in the near future—with catastrophic consequences, because Japan’s famous earthquake-and-tsunami preparedness, including the height of its sea walls, was based on incorrect science. The presentation was met with polite applause and thereafter largely ignored. Now, Goldfinger realized as the shaking hit the four-minute mark, the planet was proving the Japanese Cassandra right.

Another fascinating fact, magnitudes correspond to the length of the fault which affects how long the earthquake lasts. I'll never forget the Loma Prieta quake and looking to my sister saying "shouldn't this be over by now?!"

The reason there are no earthquake magnitudes over 9.0 is because there are no faults longer than that. The most powerful earthquake ever recorded was the Valdivia quake along the coast of Chile in 1960. Various measurements were 9.6, and 9.4. That earthquake lasted 10 minutes.

R88, tsunamis are insane. How crazy to think that an event happening in Japan can travel a couple of hours clear across the Pacific and affect the west coast here.

I think it was in the New Yorker article that said tsunamis are the most unsurvivable natural disasters.

R90, I'd say so. It's not how I'd wanna go! I'd rather get smashed in the earthquake.

R91 They say it's when the wave goes back out that you're doomed.

As someone said on Twitter, this is proof that California's elementary schools are getting at least ONE thing right. (I used to teach in LAUSD; the Shake-out drills are no joke)

I watched some clips from Japan 2011 again, recently. Clips during the actual quake (not the tsunami) -- people in office buildings, attending conferences in banquet/meeting rooms, etc. For the most earthquake-prepared country on earth, it was shocking to me how many adults just stood, or sat, around --doing the most pointless shit, like holding breifcases & file folders (!!) over their heads, instead of Drop-C Cover-Hold.

R92, the ocean receding is a definite sign of a tsunami wave oncoming. And you have all of 15 minutes to get yourself to higher ground.

We’re supposed to appreciate the warning sirens and voice overs of ‘’Tsunami Warning-evacuate to higher ground’’ over and over with no street names or numbers given or how many miles in until halfway through event-like yelling fire in a crowded theater-Chaos

R95, a concrete building over five stories tall should be high enough.

Some guy was collecting evidence of past tsunamis. One example was seeing a boulder up on a cliff and wondering how in the world that got up there. He took it was evidence a tsunami had hit that spot and carried the boulder up there.

You had to be there-Chaos!

Imagine seeing this thing coming at you. That's a wall of water and not a mountain.

The earthquake affected a critically endangered species in Mojave Desert. Yes, you read that correctly. Over 500 miles away.

R99 Damn! I wanted to see the wave actually hit.

I won my Pickleball match!!!

R99-they didn’t record when the wave hit? Where’s the rest of the story?

‘’ I’ll have the Pupfish over easy and a side of fries’’

R97: More so than out-of-place boulders, it was the presence of "Ghost Forests" along the Washington & Oregon coast (specifically, the Copalis River area) that provided the first clues about a massive tsunami in 1700.

Just got another alert. 5.9 135 miles west of Sacramento in Nevada.

More information.

R103, the cameraman says something in Japanese that I assumes translates to "holy shit" when he realizes what that monstrosity is.

R101, the wave you're looking at is 60-feet tall (in Noda). The largest wave elsewhere in Japan was 130 ft 😱