Living History Presentations - Learning from Modern Events

[Diosa De Cancion]

Hello all,

This morning as I have been watching the continuing footage of the earthquake in Japan, I saw how watching what is happening in the modern day can help us when it comes to presenting living history.... Below is a link to my blog on the topic.

Link To Mary Read Blog

Edited March 14, 2011 by Diosa De Cancion

[hurricane]

deleted

Edited March 14, 2011 by hurricane

[Diosa De Cancion]

I am not sure exactly why the post above was deleted by the author. I'm a big fan of education and debate, so I was fine with the back and forth.

Since it was a little helpful to know what was said in order to know what I was responding to, the counterpoints that had originally brought up were questions of how many quakes were felt in what time period, what time it actually was when they hit, that it was believed there were several tsunamis, that reconstruction had been banned in the city after the quake and finally that I had made a typo and put in 1962 in on instance instead of 1692. Below is my post in response

Yes, I caught the dyslexic moment pretty quick you just started reading before I could fix it ☺

On the other points, well there are a few debates there. First, yes, I mentioned the one pocket watch did stop at 11:43, but they are still debating if that was the time of the quake or it stopped sometime after the main shock. I tend to agree with you, that would be the time of the quake. If I recall correctly, the watch was crushed in the quake, so likely had a pretty accurate time of when all hell broke loose.

Yes there were foreshocks, but it is not believed those lead to the liquifaction. The main shock, estimated to be a 7.5 or so by USGS, was where the liquifaction occurred. There were multiple aftershocks as well, which could definitely explain why people said it lasted up to 15 minutes.

They also believe there was just one ensuing Tsunami of 4-6 feet, which is more than enough to cover Port Royal, being barely at sea level, and multiple other high waves that followed. They were not defined as tsunamis though, just high seas and the 'washtub effect' waves coming from the harbor side.

Where did you get info on a ban on building? I would be interested in reading that. Since 90 percent of the buildings in the city were destroyed, I cannot imagine they did not allow rebuilding or everyone would have had to leave. They didn't. They tried to rebuild but then had the hurricane later that decade and the fire in 1704 which destroyed everything they had rebuilt (except the forts).

Edited March 14, 2011 by Diosa De Cancion

[hurricane]

deleted

Edited March 14, 2011 by hurricane

[Diosa De Cancion]

Again, to summarize the deleted post above so this post makes sense....

These counterpoints were raised:

It was the Kingston Act passed after the fire in 1703 which he got out of the book Port Royal Jamaica by Michael Pawson and David Buissert and that The USGS is a scientific guesstimate at best, and that he was deferring to the official British and Jamaican records on it the quake and wave(s). It was also noted that it wasn't an actual tidal wave/tsunami as these are typically associated with subduction zone quakes and Jamaica's was more than likely a quake along a fault line so the sea floor did not suddenly fall or rise, as required to create a tsunami.

And below is my response to those comments

So the ban was after the fire and hurricane, but not as a result of the earthquake.... as they did work to rebuild after that. You're talking 12 years later...I really haven't studied what happened further on as much, I mainly am interested in the quake and the facts surrounding that...

And yes, I happen to know that book. Since you got custody of that copy I have picked up another

On the tsunami front, they do not get many tsunamis, but their records refer to the 1692 quake as one such incident as this being the case. If you check out the research of Dr. Margaret D. Wiggins-Grandison from the University of the West Indies in Kingston, it is estimated it was a 6ft wave. And just as a side note, again in 1907, she refers to 6-10 ft waves on the North Coast as tsunamis.

So, what makes them tsunamis?

Now, it is true, that plates have to move up or down to cause a tsunami. This is usually unlikely along the Caribbean plate, as it's a pretty docile plate, but it can happen. It is extremely rare. But the 1692 and 1907 quakes are believed to have been large enough to cause this to happen. In all of the Caribbean there are only 10 times that researchers believe this has happened in about 500 years. What they think happened is that the eastern Caribbean plate moved all at once in order to create what would have to be about a 7.5 quake.

So was there really a tsunami? Was it a 7.5? The researchers only have the same writings and records of the incident that we do of what happened to begin their research with, followed by a lot of really cool scientific instruments that we don't have. So, I'm going to go with their assessment until I am given a reason to go with something different.

Edited March 14, 2011 by Diosa De Cancion

[MadMike]

Port Royal Quake-

‘The sand in the street rose like the waves of the sea, lifting up all persons that stood upon it, and immediately dropping down into pits; and at the same instant a flood of water rushed in, throwing down all who were in its way; some were seen catching hold of beams and rafters of houses, others were found in the sand that appeared when the water was drained away, with their legs and arms out’.

On the other hand, here's a fairly new video of a series of tsunami waves coming ashore in Japan. Watch it to the end, pretty terrifying stuff-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qAjG7zitNE&feature=topvideos

Yours, Mike

[Diosa De Cancion]

Thank you Mad Mike for posting that! Quite the scary footage! I have always appreciated the power of Mother Nature, but videos like that where the water just keeps coming and coming.... wow....