[HN Gopher] Earthquake in Japan yesterday may have shifted land ...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Earthquake in Japan yesterday may have shifted land 1.3 meters
        
       Author : ronyclau
       Score  : 99 points
       Date   : 2024-01-02 11:55 UTC (11 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www3.nhk.or.jp)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www3.nhk.or.jp)
        
       | sandworm101 wrote:
       | The amount of energy released in such events boggles the mind.
       | Shifting cubic-kilometers of rock, in this case several hundred
       | or even thousands of cubic-kilometers, even a few inches requires
       | more energy than all the worlds nukes many times over. We live
       | atop an immense heat engine, every little vibration of which
       | could power our entire civilization for years.
        
         | cm2187 wrote:
         | It's even harder than harvesting lightnings.
        
           | sandworm101 wrote:
           | I'm not sure about that. Drill some holes, pump some water,
           | and geothermal power straight to the grid can be done.
           | Harvesting lighting would require innumerable towers and even
           | would require some trickery to get it hooked up to our power
           | grids.
        
             | borgunit2 wrote:
             | That's not kinetic earthquake energy, though.
             | 
             | I think in an apples-to-apples comparison, you would need
             | to attach some kind of device to absorb the kinetic energy
             | from the fault.
        
               | rzzzt wrote:
               | A building-sized piezo crystal?
        
               | lawlessone wrote:
               | Country sized.
        
             | squirtle24 wrote:
             | Or one clock tower and a flux capacitor...
        
             | cm2187 wrote:
             | ...and wait for the next major earthquake to even test it.
        
           | barbariangrunge wrote:
           | A friend, back when he was a physics student, looked into
           | harvesting lightning.
           | 
           | He calculated that it wasn't economically viable: tons of
           | wattage, but for such brief timespans, that it doesn't
           | actually amount to that much on a comparative scale. The cost
           | of building the collectors and transporting the electricity
           | (from ocean platforms) was much higher than the cost of using
           | other energy sources. Iirc. It wasn't exactly a serious
           | investigation by a team of engineers, but I basically trust
           | his conclusion.
           | 
           | Maybe it will be more attractive in the future after we stop
           | using hydrocarbons?
        
             | kulahan wrote:
             | I know embarrassingly little about electricity, but
             | wouldn't this also likely require significant advances in
             | semiconductors to even be feasible?
        
         | IKantRead wrote:
         | I've always found it fascinating that geophysicist and earlier
         | advocate for Bayesian methods, Sir Harold Jeffreys, _didn 't
         | believe_ in continental drift and plate tectonics because he
         | felt there was no known source of energy on the Earth massive
         | enough to explain this movement. [0]
         | 
         | He remained an opponent until death (at which point continental
         | drift was _widely_ accepted) which is both a testament to the
         | literally unbelievable energy behind seismic activity and the
         | importance of _updating_ your Bayesian priors as you gain new
         | information.
         | 
         | 0.
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Jeffreys#Opposition_to_...
        
           | thehours wrote:
           | Actually the lesson I take away is the importance of not
           | having a 0% (or 100%) prior, since it leaves no room to
           | update with new information.
        
             | roenxi wrote:
             | It is also suspicious because it means someone has assigned
             | a 0% prior to their being insane or in some sort of
             | Plato's-cave scenario - which is hard to justify.
             | 
             | The minimum possible Baysian prior is a base rate of "my
             | senses are just not picking up reality and/or my memory is
             | catastrophically compromised and/or I cannot process logic
             | right now due to some reason" which while low is never
             | going to be 0%. There are too many known ways for human
             | brains to fall over. 0% priors are unjustifiable.
        
           | throwup238 wrote:
           | Another great illustration of Planck's law:
           | 
           |  _> Max Planck, surveying his own career in his Scientific
           | Autobiography, sadly remarked that "a new scientific truth
           | does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them
           | see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually
           | die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with
           | it."_ -The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
        
             | blackbear_ wrote:
             | This is actually such a great insight. That's why we also
             | need new generations of politicians and management every so
             | often to keep the wheel of progress rolling. And,
             | incidentally, why I think that developing anti-aging
             | technology is not a good idea.
        
           | cozzyd wrote:
           | I've always found it fascinating that the guy who came up
           | with the theory (Wegener) died in on the ice sheet in
           | Greenland while attempting to resupply a research station.
           | Having spent some time on the Greenland Ice Sheet at Summit
           | Station, life on the Greenland ice sheet is much more cushy
           | nowadays...
        
         | barbariangrunge wrote:
         | I think we sort of have the tech to use geological energy, but
         | I imagine the hardest part is not having your equipment
         | destroyed all the time by quakes? You'd probably want to put
         | your collectors deep underground where there's more activity
        
           | sandworm101 wrote:
           | At a theoretical level, it could be done with ropes. You
           | don't need to wait for earthquakes. Setup two anchors on
           | either side of a fault. String ropes between them. As the two
           | plates slowly more, the stretching ropes can be tied to
           | generators. Totally theoretical but, no new physics is
           | required to extract energy from two slowly moving things.
        
       | throw0101d wrote:
       | Australia updated its latitude and longitude somewhat recently
       | because of continental drift:
       | 
       | > _The Geocentric Datum of Australia, the country's local
       | coordinate system, was last updated in 1994, and Australia is now
       | about 1.5m further north-north-east (or, to give the metric used
       | in a BBC infographic: about the height of a kangaroo)._
       | 
       | * https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/aug/03/mind-the-gap...
       | 
       | * https://www.ga.gov.au/scientific-topics/positioning-navigati...
       | 
       | * https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/science-envir...
       | 
       | To anyone working in the GIS industry: how would one go about
       | doing a 'mass update' of locations of an entire country in maps
       | and firmware and such?
        
         | dboreham wrote:
         | Locations inside a country (e.g. plat map boundaries) don't use
         | latitude/longitude.
        
           | taeric wrote:
           | They didn't used to. And, of course you are correct that
           | survey markers are to landmarks. But, more and more people
           | are using data from online mapping services, that largely
           | think they can store locations in lat/lng. People seem to
           | trust that as "the UTC of location data."
           | 
           | That said, those can be just as fraught, no? Since movement
           | will not be fully uniform for the entire continent? And
           | landmarks aren't static things, either? I'm curious how
           | landmarks are done to preserve this, long term?
        
             | tmm wrote:
             | > And landmarks aren't static things, either? I'm curious
             | how landmarks are done to preserve this, long term?
             | 
             | At least in the US, the people in charge of this (the
             | National Geodetic Survey) take movement into account.
             | This[1] is the datasheet for the reference monument nearest
             | my house. It has data for 3D velocity of the reference
             | point.                   VX =  -0.0150 m/yr      northward
             | =   0.0040 m/yr         VY =  -0.0008 m/yr      eastward  =
             | -0.0148 m/yr         VZ =   0.0030 m/yr      upward    =
             | -0.0002 m/yr
             | 
             | I'm not sure what the difference is between VX/VY/VZ and
             | northward/eastward/upward, but those numbers are bigger
             | than I thought they'd be. 15 mm/yr seems like a lot!
             | 
             | The official coordinates get updated from time to time, and
             | in-between, perhaps you're supposed to adjust your
             | measurements using that movement data (IANAS)? If there is
             | a significant measured change in location due to an
             | earthquake, I'm sure that data would be included in the
             | monument datasheet or a new set of coordinates would be
             | published.
             | 
             | FWIW, I went looking to see when the last earthquake was
             | here in Maryland and it turns out there was one today[2].
             | 
             | [1] https://www.ngs.noaa.gov/cgi-
             | cors/CorsSidebarSelect.prl?site... [2]
             | https://www.abc27.com/news/top-stories/2-3-magnitude-
             | earthqu...
        
           | eesmith wrote:
           | Some places use an encoded lat/long.
           | 
           | Open Location Code - "Google has shown practical usage of
           | plus codes for addressing purposes in Cape Verde,[10] parts
           | of Kolkata[11] and Kolhapur[12] in India, and the Navajo
           | Nation in the United States.[13]" -
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geocode .
           | https://freethoughtblogs.com/singham/2023/12/24/using-olc-
           | co... says a friend of his sent an OLC coordinate to get to a
           | place in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, which (infamously?)
           | has no street numbers.
           | 
           | What3words - "This population had "no consistent addressing
           | system" until May 2016 when Mongol Post started using a
           | geocoding system provided by what3words." -
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_Post
           | 
           | Over time (centuries?) the named coordinate will no longer be
           | valid as the location is no longer near enough to that
           | lat/long.
        
         | taeric wrote:
         | I'm also curious if anyone has a good article to read on how
         | this is managed. My guess would be that you have reference
         | points and sets of nearby things that are recorded relative to
         | the closest reference point. As noted in the sibling, your plat
         | map is likely set against a local landmark. (Though, even
         | there, they often also include the lat/lng of where it is
         | expected to be found.)
        
           | gwright wrote:
           | This is a good example of why capturing coordinates in a
           | local spatial reference system may be better than capturing
           | coordinates in a global spatial reference system.
           | 
           | Global coordinates of a place of interest will drift relative
           | to a global coordinate system but remain stable relative to a
           | local coordinate system. This article illustrates that
           | "stable" is not the same thing as unchanging in the presence
           | of 7.5 earthquakes.
        
         | chrismorgan wrote:
         | Australia's geocentric datum is pretty boring, because
         | Australia's tectonics are pretty boring. We just don't get
         | large earthquakes. So the GDA94 - GDA2020 update is actually
         | pretty minor.
         | 
         | If my understanding is correct, the 1.8m difference sometimes
         | talked of between ITRF92 and GDA94 by 2020 is actually
         | irrelevant so long as you do proper projection of your
         | coordinates, which you _should_ , but some things don't--and so
         | tweaking your reference point from time to time to compensate
         | is pragmatic (in part because it lets people skip deformation
         | models where a metre or so of accuracy is adequate, so temper
         | my "should"). The GDA94 - GDA2020 update is more about certain
         | changes in ITRF1992 - ITRF2014 (~9cm changes in ellipsoidal
         | heights), and local crust deformations. Mass updating from
         | GDA94 to GDA2020 is an easy reprojection.
         | 
         | In saying GDA94 is actually fine as far as continental drift is
         | concerned: the thing most people don't realise is that all of
         | these coordinate systems are actually _time-dependent_
         | transformations: they've got forecast continental drift baked
         | in. So later datum updates just need to record what _actually_
         | happened, if it was different enough (which it will be in
         | places).
         | 
         | Now real earthquakes--they make things much more interesting. I
         | like what https://www.linz.govt.nz/guidance/geodetic-
         | system/coordinate... says:
         | 
         | > _Some earthquakes, such as those of the Canterbury earthquake
         | sequence starting in 2010, have caused metres of movement.
         | Where this has happened we have updated the coordinates rather
         | than simply include the movement in the deformation model. This
         | is necessary as otherwise the coordinates will not be accurate
         | enough for many applications. The deformation model still
         | includes the earthquake deformation, but it is applied in
         | reverse to transform coordinates for dates before the
         | earthquake._
         | 
         | The deformation model page
         | <https://www.linz.govt.nz/guidance/geodetic-
         | system/coordinate...> is also rather interesting, giving
         | details of when they've released new deformation models,
         | including both forward and reverse patches due to earthquakes,
         | and it's _messy_. I haven't thought too deeply about the
         | reverse patching technique (this isn't a domain I work in) but
         | I don't think I like it (though it may be pragmatic) because it
         | messes with epoch-era NZGD2000 points, seems to undermine the
         | purpose of a datum unless you have recorded the coordinate
         | times as well (rather than merely transforming to the epoch,
         | which has now been spoiled). Did have a fun chat with a
         | telecommunications field worker that I happened to meet when I
         | was in New Zealand in 2021, who had a lot of interesting
         | experience after the 2016 Kaikoura earthquake. Lots of stuff
         | I'm not used to thinking about, coming from boring old
         | Australia.
        
           | bee_rider wrote:
           | Hi from New England, middle-of-the-plate buddy. In fact, it
           | had never occurred to me that the mapping of parts of the
           | ground to, like, latitude-longitude could be time dependent,
           | haha. I guess this could make a big difference in surveying.
        
             | blacksmith_tb wrote:
             | For most surveying wouldn't the the relative, nearby points
             | be shifting together equally?
        
               | johncalvinyoung wrote:
               | not in California, Iceland, or Japan!
        
       | badcppdev wrote:
       | This is a very sad example of land movement and it's a tragedy
       | that people have died in the aftermath and recovery effort.
       | 
       | But it's also an important reminder that our super accurate GPS
       | measurements are not 100% reliable over time. The earth moves.
       | Either in jumps like this or fairly constantly if it's somewhere
       | like Australia [0]
       | 
       | 0 -https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/24/world/what-in-the-
       | world/a...
        
         | dataflow wrote:
         | I'm confused, how does moving 2.7 inches a year translate into
         | 656 feet over 25 years? Was it moving tens or hundreds of times
         | faster a few decades ago?
        
           | badcppdev wrote:
           | I assume that should be 6.56 feet or some similar
           | miscalculation converting from metric to imperial
           | measurements
        
             | throw0101d wrote:
             | > _6.56 feet_
             | 
             | Statute feet or survey feet?
             | 
             | * https://www.nist.gov/pml/us-surveyfoot
             | 
             | * https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/geodesy/international-
             | foot.htm...
             | 
             | *
             | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot_(unit)#U.S._survey_foot
        
           | burkaman wrote:
           | Basically, before 1994 the official Australia coordinate
           | system was not optimized for GPS, which was not common when
           | the system was developed, and so didn't exactly align with
           | global coordinates. The 656 foot change was mostly about
           | that, not about tectonic changes.
           | 
           | AGD is Australian Geodetic Datum of 1984 and GDA94 is
           | Geocentric Datum Of Australia 1994.
           | 
           | > The AGD provided a reference system that best fit the shape
           | of the earth in the Australian Region but its origin did not
           | coincide with the centre of mass of the earth. National
           | datums were commonly non-geocentric before satellite based
           | navigation systems were established in the early 1970's. The
           | distance between the origin points of GDA94 and AGD is
           | approximately 200 metres. When the coordinates of a point on
           | the Earth's surface are converted from AGD to GDA94 this
           | translates to a coordinate difference of approximately the
           | same amount. The difference varies slightly depending on
           | where you are in Australia.
           | 
           | - https://www.icsm.gov.au/datum/australian-geodetic-
           | datum-1966...
           | 
           | > Previously, a change of about 200 metres occurred in the
           | year 2000 when Australia shifted from the Australian Geodetic
           | Datum 1984 (AGD84) to the Australian Geocentric Datum 1994
           | (GDA94).
           | 
           | - https://www.dmp.wa.gov.au/News/Geocentric-Datum-of-
           | Australia...
           | 
           | Nowadays you can use the Australian Terrestrial Reference
           | Frame, which is time dependent and automatically adjusts to
           | compensate for tectonic movement:
           | https://www.icsm.gov.au/australian-terrestrial-reference-
           | fra....
        
         | samstave wrote:
         | > _reminder that our super accurate GPS measurements are not
         | 100% reliable_
         | 
         | Lockheed solved this with their super sensitive Magnetic Field
         | ' _GPS_ ' device - which they claim if for having 'GPS'
         | accuracy for aircraft and ships nearly 100% based on the
         | localized magnetic signature of the earth - but we all know
         | these are actually built for subterranian/submarine environs
         | where space based GPS no cut it. Can't navigate Agartha without
         | it.
         | 
         | https://www.gpsworld.com/quantum-magnetometer-senses-its-pla...
         | 
         | I do wonder how much major earthquakes affect the finer
         | signature of the magnetic fields?
        
           | KeplerBoy wrote:
           | How is this solved?
           | 
           | The surface of the earth just shifted in a highly non-linear
           | and non-uniform way. Places are not at the same coordinates
           | or at the same distances from each other they were last week.
        
             | samstave wrote:
             | Read the link. The quantum magnetic locator doesnt use GPS
             | satellites, so the "our GPS is not 100% accurate" is solved
             | by the magnetic quantum thing... its just not available on
             | _ _your_ _ smartphone.
             | 
             | Re-read my post, I believe that the real use of Lockheeds
             | Quantum GPS is for subterranian and submarine navigation
             | more than it is for aircraft - hoever, if we can map the
             | magnetosphere of other planets, say, mars, then this could
             | be a non-satellite-dependant GPS for any body in space
             | where we know the magnetic signature based on probes...
             | although said probes could also double as GPS satellites
             | for the planet they are probing should we add such
             | equipment, it would seem.
        
               | KeplerBoy wrote:
               | But the problem is not the accuracy, it's the temporal
               | stability. GPS is accurate enough, but it's no good if
               | the physical locations shift over time.
               | 
               | Most people need an up-to-date map, not just a location
               | on a map.
        
               | shagie wrote:
               | Related - Farmers 'crippled' by satellite failure as GPS-
               | guided tractors grind to a halt 181 points 8 months ago
               | 150 comments
               | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35643705 --
               | https://www.smh.com.au/national/farmers-crippled-by-
               | satellit...
        
               | bobthepanda wrote:
               | GPS is only accurate up to 16 feet, and unless you are
               | very close to an earthquake or other deformation source
               | probably everything around you has moved by the same
               | amount.
               | 
               | Most people only use GPS for local navigation.
        
               | KeplerBoy wrote:
               | GPS is much better than 16 feet these days.
               | 
               | Nobody asks google maps for instructions how to move 10
               | miles southwest. We ask it to provide a route to a
               | specific latitude and longitude, that's global navigation
               | and that, of course, doesn't work if the place you want
               | to get to has gotten new coordinates overnight.
        
               | bobthepanda wrote:
               | That 16 ft figure is provided by the government.
               | https://www.gps.gov/systems/gps/performance/accuracy/
               | 
               | And of course, satellite navigation is worsened by the
               | urban canyon of buildings, terrain, trees etc so super
               | accurate navigation also uses local cell towers, which
               | are also shifting by the same magnitude and direction as
               | you and your local destination.
               | 
               | Ultimately people only really need to get to the rough
               | city block of where they need to be, and so as long as
               | buildings are not shifting hundreds of feet a year it is
               | mostly not noticeable.
        
               | pxeboot wrote:
               | From that source:
               | 
               | > GPS-enabled smartphones are typically accurate to
               | within a 4.9 m (16 ft.) radius
               | 
               | Smartphones were typically optimized for speed and
               | battery life, not accuracy. Now that Multi-Band GPS is
               | available on high end smartphones, they tend to be more
               | accurate.
        
               | WJW wrote:
               | Also almost every smartphone I know of has acceleration
               | sensors and can do Kalman filtering of the GPS position
               | to achieve a much higher accuracy in practical use, even
               | if the individual measurements are only accurate to ~5
               | meters.
        
               | samstave wrote:
               | They add fuzz to RSSI algos due to accelerometers trying
               | to predict direction ofmotion for telemetry aiming.
               | 
               | swarm that on that backend with GPS tlemetry and typical
               | rssi from cell towers, and the IMEI - and you have
               | precise targets... with bios on the tracker (phone) -
               | cams, gait, finger, face, voice, face... May as well
               | start developing smart fabric... Oh wait...
               | 
               | :-)
               | 
               | Cyberpunk is dystopian by mr(crisper)DNA (TM)
        
               | samstave wrote:
               | Could even use this as a revers GLOBAL ORBITING SYSTEM
               | [GoS] - Whereby a single satellite|probe dispels a lander
               | to a planet with the Quantum Magnetic Cannister, and that
               | QMC signals its global location to the satellite
               | launcher, and the satellit can extrap its location based
               | on the absolute location of the ground guys... (might
               | need more than one ground magnet-moles?)
               | 
               | How can this be measured? Can fluidx3d do martian
               | magnetics? [0]
               | 
               | --
               | 
               | [0] https://github.com/ProjectPhysX/FluidX3D
               | 
               | ---
               | 
               | EDIT: "Mars does not have a magnetosphere"
               | 
               | ELI5: "how do electronics work when there is zero
               | magnetic field around them? A complete antimagnetic
               | environ?"
               | 
               | I've never heard any mention about making any electrical
               | device work on a planet (such as mars) in a complete
               | magnetically dark location?
               | 
               | How is there gravity on mars if there is no magnetic
               | field for a planet, and how can mass, the size of a
               | planet not produce magnetism/gravity if its not made of
               | iron-sh (the RED of the planet)
               | 
               | ELI5, please.
        
         | amluto wrote:
         | > But it's also an important reminder that our super accurate
         | GPS measurements are not 100% reliable over time. The earth
         | moves.
         | 
         | This is IMO an odd statement. Land moves, and we can measure
         | that movement extremely precisely. If software was more
         | competent, we would record positions in four dimensions: space
         | and time, relative to a well defined coordinate system. And we
         | could map a position at one time to a position at another time,
         | with excellent accuracy.
         | 
         | As far as I can tell, the only real limitations are a lack of
         | standards and a lack of software support. I don't think any
         | common CAD or GIS system has any particular support. Heck, QGIS
         | will happily complain that WGS84 isn't good for high precision,
         | and I can even tell whether this is a genuinely meaningful
         | statement.
        
           | Retric wrote:
           | It's not just a software problem, you also need to know how
           | the earth is being deformed which is far more difficult than
           | you might think.
        
             | arghwhat wrote:
             | Not necessarily. Place a grid of receivers in fixed
             | locations and observe their reported position. That grid is
             | then the transform you need between the map when they were
             | placed and the current state of the globe.
             | 
             | A question would be how many you need, but these movements
             | are on a large scale and receivers are dirt cheap.
        
               | Retric wrote:
               | A low resolution grid is cheap, but having enough censors
               | for local accuracy is expensive because fault lines are
               | so complicated:
               | 
               | https://strangesounds.org/wp-
               | content/uploads/2014/09/earthqu...
               | 
               | What you really want is censers placed based on the
               | underlying geology rather than a grid and then to combine
               | that with a model of the geology.
        
               | Retric wrote:
               | *sensors
        
           | chrismorgan wrote:
           | This _is_ how things are done. You specify the datum,
           | coordinates, and time. Geodetic datums are time-dependent
           | transformation functions. Any software that is recording
           | points at the particular time called "now" and not either
           | recording the coordinates and time, or reprojecting them to a
           | meaningful reference datum at its epoch (origin in time), is
           | _bad_.
        
             | amluto wrote:
             | As far as I can tell, GIS software is _bad_ , then. I spent
             | longer than seemed at all reasonable trying to research
             | this with QGIS, and I got nowhere. ArcGIS (which I don't
             | have) wasn't obviously better.
             | 
             | Do you have an example of good software?
        
               | chrismorgan wrote:
               | Sorry, no. This was my dad's field, not mine, so I've
               | just got a bunch of second-hand info and know that the
               | software he worked on (two pieces, one for a company and
               | one of his own) handled these sorts of things correctly.
               | And I find it genuinely impossible to imagine that major
               | GIS software would _not_ handle this, because it's so
               | fundamental.
               | 
               | Your GIS software will have you set a base CRS, and then,
               | presuming it's not recording time on points, all
               | coordinates will be relative to it at its epoch. That's
               | all you need, now if you want to see what it's like _now_
               | , you project it accordingly. Anything along the lines of
               | recording new points based on actual measurements should
               | _obviously_ either record time and position, or just
               | position after performing the reverse transformation. But
               | there you'd tend to be getting beyond the domain of what
               | the bulky GIS software is doing, and into the domain of
               | specific-purpose mobile apps and such.
        
         | robocat wrote:
         | > our super accurate GPS measurements are not 100% reliable
         | over time
         | 
         | The GPS measurements _are_ 100% reliable. Think of it like
         | getting GPS co-ordinates while on a boat - it 's the boat that
         | moves.
         | 
         | A point of interest on land doesn't stay at the same
         | latitude/longitude/altitude because land is a tectonic plate
         | "boat" floating on the mantle.
         | 
         | Close to the earthquake faultplane, land crumples and shears
         | sideways and up/down. Plus secondary effects of the shaking:
         | landslides, settlement, liquifaction.
         | 
         | Finally: I think it helps to remember that earthquakes are
         | fault _planes_. Talk of epicentres and depths and faultlines
         | often misleads our intuitions. For one of the Christchurch
         | earthquakes my parents were about a kilometre away from the
         | faultline (where the faultplane met the surface) and many
         | kilometres away from the epicentre (which is just a synthetic
         | average point), but the faultplane actually was relatively
         | close to them somewhere underneath their home.
         | 
         | Also images of cracks in roads are often extremely misleading.
         | They tend to be spectacular subsidence and are not the
         | faultline. The actual faultline is usually not so photographic
         | and less likely to have great photos early on. Media choses
         | photos for their emotional appeal - not because they are a good
         | approximation for the truth.
        
           | oasisbob wrote:
           | > The GPS measurements are 100% reliable. Think of it like
           | getting GPS co-ordinates while on a boat - it's the boat that
           | moves.
           | 
           | I'm not sure this is a good metaphor. When doing high-
           | accuracy GNSS (GPS) survey work, a static reference station
           | is typically used to help correct errors from the GPS
           | measurements themselves.
           | 
           | If GPS was 100% consistent and reliable, differential
           | correction wouldn't be a common and often-required technique:
           | 
           | https://www.e-education.psu.edu/natureofgeoinfo/c5_p23.html
        
             | helen___keller wrote:
             | While you're correct that GNSS is not 100% accurate (like
             | everything in the physical world, it comes with error
             | bars), I think the point stands that the error is unrelated
             | to the movement of continents.
             | 
             | Ultimately GNSS is just measuring your position relative to
             | some celestial objects using the time it takes for signals
             | to propagate space (and some other info: their ephemerides,
             | and a shared-ish clock). The fact that land exists, and
             | where it exists, are not relevant
             | 
             | Your error corrections might be thrown off when the base
             | station moves, but that's not an issue of GNSS that's an
             | issue of RTK
        
       | philip1209 wrote:
       | How property rights work when land shifts?
        
         | intrasight wrote:
         | Land could grow or shrink. I'd think split the difference.
        
         | falcolas wrote:
         | As I understand it (at least in the US), your land rights are
         | based off of relative measurements from a static (to the land)
         | point. They often look like medallions on the ground, anchored
         | in place by fairly sizable stakes to ensure they don't easily
         | move.
         | 
         | The positions of those medallions... not as sure, but I imagine
         | they are in turn positioned according to other static points.
         | 
         | If the land cracks, well, I have no idea. That would be a legal
         | battle no doubt.
         | 
         | EDIT: These fixed points are called "common points" or "points
         | of beginning (POB)", and there's usually one per neighborhood.
         | There are also apparently buried iron rods (survey pins) that
         | define property lines that can be found using a metal detector
         | or such, but they are not foolproof.
        
           | Symbiote wrote:
           | The more common points are called trigonometrical points or
           | triangulation stations.
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangulation_station
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_of_beginning
           | 
           | (I'm surprised there's no link between these two articles.)
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial_point
        
           | foobarian wrote:
           | Reminds me of this marker story: "Belgian farmer accidentally
           | moves French border" [1]
           | 
           | [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56978344
        
         | rwmj wrote:
         | In Japan property boundaries are (often) marked with physical
         | markers embedded into the ground:
         | https://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2015/01/02/how-tos/pr...
         | https://japanpropertycentral.com/real-estate-faq/land-bounda...
        
           | dexwiz wrote:
           | Survey spikes are common worldwide. The issue is that they
           | are not always where you think they would be. They are
           | positioned relative to each other, were placed years ago, or
           | moved by unscrupulous land owners. And until relatively
           | recently it was all done by one person using an optical
           | device looking at another person standing there with a
           | colored stick.
           | 
           | Surveyors are often called to resolve any discrepancies
           | during disputes or sales.
        
         | Kon-Peki wrote:
         | In California, you file an action in court and they will redraw
         | the property lines in a fair manner, allowing everyone affected
         | to have a say in what counts as "fair".
         | 
         | https://law.justia.com/codes/california/2009/ccp/751.50-751....
        
         | shagie wrote:
         | An example for Alaska.
         | 
         | https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/662519e4406946faa6e655d...
         | 
         | > Land within the Refuge that is tidally influenced up to the
         | mean high-tide level, is managed by the Alaska Department of
         | Fish and Game (ADF&G) for its unique recreational and wildlife
         | values. As post-glacial rebound lifts the outer edges of the
         | Refuge beyond the reach of the tides, the Refuge boundary
         | shrinks. --->>> When glacial rebound lifts this new land above
         | the high tide line, landowners adjacent to the Refuge can go
         | through a legal process to claim this new land as a part of
         | their property. <<<--- To ensure that these uplifted lands
         | remain in their natural condition for habitat and recreation,
         | the Southeast Alaska Land Trust (SEALT) sought partnerships
         | with interested landowners through the Accreted Lands Project.
         | 
         | And on the wiki page for post-glacial rebound, Finland has an
         | example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-
         | glacial_rebound#Legal_imp...
         | 
         | > In areas where the rising of land is seen, it is necessary to
         | define the exact limits of property. In Finland, the "new land"
         | is legally the property of the owner of the water area, not any
         | land owners on the shore. Therefore, if the owner of the land
         | wishes to build a pier over the "new land", they need the
         | permission of the owner of the (former) water area. The
         | landowner of the shore may redeem the new land at market price.
        
       | dang wrote:
       | Related:
       | 
       |  _Magnitude 7.6 earthquake strikes Japan, tsunami warning issued
       | for Ishikawa_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38830281 -
       | Jan 2024 (64 comments)
        
       | aptitude_moo wrote:
       | Obligatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/2029/
        
       | baron816 wrote:
       | xkcd's what if had a video about the earthquake scale last month
       | that was interesting
       | https://youtu.be/e3uk7jU3RHo?si=RULnWlFTqUMqgWZe
        
       | 1letterunixname wrote:
       | 4' in Freedom Units. I'm wondering how well utilities and
       | megastructures on the Noto Peninsula are able to cope with
       | gradual and sudden shifts, even in Japan where earthquakes are
       | assumed. It looks like Noto is being ripped and stretched NW from
       | the mainland.
       | 
       | ---
       | 
       | Also, I re-read the Fukushima Daiichi report summaries yesterday.
       | It's an almost universal human condition that plays out again and
       | again: corporate risk management for large projects is done
       | improperly, especially when there are constraints and cognitive
       | dissonance imposed by the business culture, and it leads to a
       | major failure.
       | 
       | Points of the failure chain include:
       | 
       | - Failure to account for known unknown risks such as the land
       | subsidence combined with a large tsunami (based on the coastal
       | geomorphology of the specific site).
       | 
       | - Failure to protect critical EDGs from flooding, e.g., seawater
       | intrusion. If trying to run a diesel motor near the ocean, it
       | must be buttoned-up tighter than a Jeep with a snorkel including
       | waterproofing sensors, wiring, and control systems. In general,
       | sites should be chosen on very high ground with a large safety
       | factor. If that's not possible, they should be placed on
       | elevated, reinforced structures.
       | 
       | - GE BWR-3/-4 (Mark I) core design is such that they can overheat
       | and self-destruct, even if scrammed, because cooling is an
       | absolute requirement at all times.
       | 
       | - A lack of redundant, auxiliary, passive cooling ability, such
       | as a gravity-fed reservoir that can be operated manually.
       | 
       | - Regulators did insufficient due-diligence to prevent these
       | risks.
       | 
       | - "Made in Japan" failure of culture (this was part of the final
       | report).
       | 
       | - Using radionuclides that are inherently dangerous and produce
       | forever waste rather than cheaper alternatives like solar with
       | PES. Japan's solar just overtook nuclear, but still relies
       | heavily on coal and gas. BWRs are inherently nastier than PWRs.
       | 
       | Non-problems at FD:
       | 
       | - Scramming worked properly, but the primary loops were still
       | hot.
       | 
       | Disclaimer: Worked in the nuclear industry where hostnames were
       | Simpsons' character names.
        
       | shagie wrote:
       | Out There Learning - The Greatest Ever On-Land Fault Movement -
       | https://youtu.be/LUsIIJwxPYU (length: 4m 25s)
       | 
       | > Where is the world's greatest known on-land fault movement of
       | any individual earthquake? It's at a place called Pigeon Bush
       | near Wellington New Zealand. It is the surface trace of the
       | Wairarapa Fault. In 1855 a magnitude 8.2 earthquake offset a
       | small stream bed by about 18.5 metres which is the greatest
       | single-event fault movement of any on-land fault in the globe!
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2024-01-02 23:01 UTC)