Earthquakes (earthquake, living, moving)

[MACDONALDO67]

I was surprised to read that Hawaii suffers from thousands of quakes each year but they are so small they only just register.

So which Island suffers the most would you say? Oahu, The Big One?

Has intrigued me somewhat.

[Calico Salsa]

The USGS.gov site is excellent for earthquake information.
Map Centered at 20°N, 157°W

The above link should take you right to the Hawaiian Islands, and you can see sizes of quakes graphically. There are links to historical lists of quakes, you can peruse to your heart's content.

They also offer alerts, for those interested in receiving a text message whenever there is a quake within a specified region and of a specified size. We have alerts coming to us for anything >=6.0, for the whole Pacific. That way when Chile or Japan has another 6+, we know right away.

[PacificFlights]

This is some info:

[MACDONALDO67]

Thanks for the info. So it does seem to be focused around The Big Island. Amazing what we take for granted.

[lauleahere&there]

It makes sense that any place with an active volcano is likely to have a lot of seismic activity, too.

[HankDfrmSD]

Most places around the Pacific that have earthquakes produce the "fault slip" variety. These are caused by the "sticking" of tectonic plates that are moving relative to each other, where a section of the earth's crust where pressure has built up suddenly "un-sticks". Sometimes very violent, like the recent one off Japan.

I believe that almost all the earthquakes on the big island are just lava moving around in the chambers under the island. There is no tectonic plate boundary near Hawaii.

Hank

[Dreaming of Hawaii]

I think that the earthquakes are located in the rift zones, which is where the magma is moving. There are lots and lots of little earthquakes that we never notice.

[lauleahere&there]

To add to what Hank and Dreaming have said, here's a couple of paragraphs from the USGS

If you're a geek like me, maybe you'll enjoy the extra info.

[hotzcatz]

Oahu doesn't usually have very many earthquakes, the island of Hawaii has lots more and bigger ones. I'm suspecting the big earthquakes are more than just lava wandering around. The 6.7 we had about four or five years ago took out buildings, bridges, etc. Of course, there have been a lot of much worse ones since then. Christmas down below Thailand - is that the China Sea area? Then there was Haiti, New Zealand, wasn't it? Then, of course, Japan.

I think the Big Island gets more earthquake damage from tsunami from other places than direct earthquake damage here, but that's just my opinion and I haven't actually looked.

[DanaMarley]

You had a 6.7 one? Wow.. it took out buildings & bridges... which town was that? we'd always get some small ones, living on B.I.... wake up and our chandelier would be moving about in kitchen....
It's just something you have to get used to... plates are shifting all the time on big island... never felt them in waimea though... maybe now they do get them there...
Yeah.. that quake in Japan was staggering! poor people... i feel so bad for them... tsunamis seem to do more devastation than the quakes in HI though.

what is a tectonic plate boundary, btw?