A Great Earthquake of Magnitude 8.8 occurred off the coast of Chile this morning at 06:34:14 UTC. The extracted signal from my seismograph in northeastern Ohio shows severe clipping on the surface wave portion of the signal due to the size of this earthquake. This earthquake was approximately 500 times stronger (energy released) than the earthquake in Haiti last month.
The earthquake occurred offshore along the convergence zone of the Nazca and South American plates. This is a thrust fault due to the subduction of the Nazca plate under the South American plate. The earthquake occurred just 250 km north of the location of the largest earthquake recorded on instruments, a magnitude 9.5 event in May of 1960. A series of significant aftershocks is expected. One of these, at magnitude 6.9, occurred at 08:01:24 UTC.
The type of fault and its location and magnitude prompted several tsunami warnings and watches. The following tsunami levels have been reported:
Location Lat. Lon. Time Amplitude
------------------------ ----- ------ ------- -----------
40min SAN FELX C 26.3S 80.1W 0809UTC 0.69M/2.3FT
27min Corral Chile 39.9S 73.4W 0727UTC 1.45M/4.8FT
40min Talcahuano C 36.7S 73.1W 0659UTC 1.80M/6.0FT
VALPARAISO C 33.0S 71.6W 0708UTC 2.60M/8.6FT
Time - Time of measurement.
Amp. - Tsunami amplitudes are measured relative to normal sea level. It is NOT crest-to-trough wave
height. Values are given in both meters (M) and feet (FT).
The phase arrival time information for my location is shown below:
delta azimuth (degrees clockwise from north)
(deg) eq-to-station station-to-eq
76.50 352.8 172.4
travel arrival time
# code time(s) dy hr mn sec
1 P 706.39 0 6 46 0
2 pP 717.33 0 6 46 11
3 PcP 717.67 0 6 46 11
4 sP 721.65 0 6 46 15
5 PP 878.25 0 6 48 52
6 PKiKP 1050.19 0 6 51 44
7 pPKiKP 1061.66 0 6 51 55
8 sPKiKP 1065.86 0 6 51 59
9 SKiKP 1261.00 0 6 55 14
10 S 1290.15 0 6 55 44
11 pS 1304.08 0 6 55 58
12 sS 1308.82 0 6 56 2
13 SKSac 1314.20 0 6 56 8
14 SKKSac 1315.27 0 6 56 9
15 ScS 1319.14 0 6 56 13
16 SPn 1326.49 0 6 56 20
17 pSKSac 1329.16 0 6 56 23
18 PnS 1331.50 0 6 56 25
19 sSKSac 1333.57 0 6 56 27
20 SS 1586.24 0 7 0 40
21 PKKPdf 1846.31 0 7 5 0
22 PKKPbc 1858.17 0 7 5 12
23 SKKPdf 2057.33 0 7 8 31
24 PKKSdf 2061.53 0 7 8 35
25 SKKSdf 2272.32 0 7 12 6
26 P'P'df 2341.82 0 7 13 15
27 S'S'df 3201.00 0 7 27 35
28 S'S'ac 3212.35 0 7 27 46
29 LQ 1941.66 0 7 6 35
30 LR 2154.97 0 7 10 8
http://www.timerson.net/earthquakes/
Another amateur scientist – he also is active in occultations
His site shows his equipment and data.