http://www.stevequayle.com/News.alert/10_Cosmic/100319.weird.HI.ref...

March 18, 2010
Urban Survival

OK, this is seriously weird...I couldn't write a better Twilight Zone episode if I had to. Last weekend in Peoplenomics, we discussed as a planning scenario something that would 'fit' with a fair amount of linguistics. The idea was that the Pacific tectonic plate would split on a line from Victoria to Suva, Fiji, or it would break along a southern Japan (through hawaii) to the Chile-Peru border area. In either case, Hawaii could be devasted.

Now, in this 'exercise' the lead in was going to be a West Coast/US quake this week, perhaps toughed off by the arrival of a CME:

"As bad as the situation was in LA, it was only 8-weeks, three days, and 9-hours later than the biggest quake in Hawaii's recorded history took place. Larger than even the March 27, 1868 event which is recalled this way:

"On March 27, 1868, whaling ships at Kawaihae on the west coast of Hawaii observed dense clouds of smoke rising from Mauna Loa's crater, Mokuaweoweo, to a height of several miles and reflecting the bright light from the lava pit. Slight shocks were felt at Kona on the west coast and Kau on the flanks of the volcano. On the 28th, lava broke out on the southwest flank and created a 15-mile flow to the sea. Over 300 strong shocks were felt at Kau and 50 to 60 were felt at Kona. At Kilauea the surface of the ground quivered for days with frequent vigorous shocks that caused lamps, crockery, and chairs to spin around as if animated. One shock resembled that of a cannon projectile striking the ground under the proprietor's bed, causing him to flee, according to the narrative published by C. H. Hitchcock in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America in 1912. Between March 28, 1868, and April 11, over 2000 distinct shocks were felt at Kona.

The main shocks struck on April 2, at 4:00 p.m., and again on April 4 at 12:30 a.m. A magnitude of 7 3/4 was estimated for this earthquake (by Augustine Furumoto in his February 1966 article on the Seismicity of Hawaii in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America) based on the extent of intensity reports. Instrumental recordings, the usual basis for computing magnitudes, were not available at this early date. The shock was felt throughout the islands as far as Niihau some 350 miles away. The ground rolled like a ship at sea and many walls tumbled down. A landslide three miles long and thirty feet thick swept down the hill carrying trees, animals, and men. Thirty-one people and thousands of cattle, sheep, horses, and goats were killed in the one slide. A seawave struck the coast from Hilo to South Cape, being most destructive at Keauhou, Puna, and Honuapo; 180 houses were washed away, and 62 lives were lost to the wave alone. A 10-foot-high wave carried wreckage inland 800 feet. Not a house survived at Honuapo. A stone church and other buildings were destroyed at Punaluu. Maximum wave heights were 65 feet, the highest observed on Hawaii to date. (More on this earthquake.) "

We now skip forward nine weeks from today:

"What is described as the biggest earthquake in the history of Hawaii quake was the largest ever recorded. It's magnitude was an astounding 9.9. But what made the quake even more outrageous - besides sending massive tsunami toward California, the result of both the shock as well as undersea landslides.

The devastation was not confined to Hawaii. In addition to the tsunami that killed several thousand in California, and thousands more in Mexico, the quake set off sympathetic quakes at 7.8 and 8.3 in Panama, damaging the Canal, as well as a 9.1 in southern Peru. Causalities in Lima, Peru were placed in the tens of thousands. As many as 75,000 died in Hawaii from structure failures, road destruction and interisland tsunamis.

Worse than even all these things was a newly evolving string of quakes in the 5.0 to 7.2 range that began to pop off several times a day along a rough 11,100 mile long line from Kagoshima in southern Japan, to the east passing 6 miles northeast of Kailua on Oahu, bisecting Molokai, and at its closest, within 8/10ths of a mile of the Haleakala National Park on Maui and then heading southeast from 35 miles northeast of Hilo on the big island of Hawaii, but more importantly just 60 miles from Mount Kilauea and 65 from Mauna Loa. Nature has been building the weakened path of least resistance for eons. But only since the Boxing Day Tsunami a few years back had the break in the Pacific Plate become a reality.

Geologists went on television pretty much non-stop over the summer having no clue that on November 15th and even more serious geological problem would occur: The 8.6 quake in the Canary Islands.