Local reflections on Japan
Following the news of the fourth worst earthquake since they
have been monitored, Mari Sawai called her mother three times
– the final time bringing the comforting news that her family
in Tokyo was okay.
“I couldn’t reach her for a couple of times, but luckily I got
a hold of her after three times and she was still having
trouble contacting my sister and my grandparents saying they
are okay,” said the senior majoring in math education and
president of the Japanese Student Association.
Though Sawai is thousands of miles from home, she and other
JSA members partnered with the American Red Cross and have
established collection boxes at five restaurants and one
business in the Toledo area.
The restaurants include Sakura Japanese Steak House, Sori
Sushi, Kotobuki Japanese Restaurant, Kyoto KA Restaurant and
Koreanna Restaurant. The lone business is Seann’s Anime and
Comics.
Aside from the donation boxes around Toledo, Sawai said JSA
set up collection boxes in five locations at UT.
The location of the donation boxes includes the offices of
International Student Association, the Office of International
Student Services, the foreign language computer lab and the
department of foreign language office.
“Even just $1 will help,” Sawai said.
An earthquake that measured 9.0 magnitude struck off the
Eastern coast of Japan, causing a tsunami that swept across
Northeastern Japan, sparking the fear of a nuclear meltdown.
Donald Stierman, an associate professor of environmental
science, said the source of the earthquake borders a
subduction zone, an area where two adjacent plates meet and
one slides above the other. The type of earthquake is called a
megathrust earthquake, which is when an oceanic plate sinks
under a continental plate.
Japan is located in an area where four plate tectonics meet:
the Philippine, North American, Pacific and Eurasian Plates.
According to Stierman, earthquakes can be explained by the
elastic rebound theory. Similar to how a rubber band
stretches, plates move along a fault, causing a high amount of
stress on the plates and the rocks return to their original
shape. When the stress is released, a wave of energy is
released.
Stierman said there is a hypothesis saying big earthquakes
change the stress on the whole tectonic plate and large quakes
occur in clusters because of this, referring to the two
earthquakes during the 1960’s – the Valdivia earthquake off
the coast of Chile and the 1964 Alaskan earthquake. Following
the two largest earthquakes recorded since the invention of
the seismograph, numbers show there was no greater earthquake
until the 9.1 earthquake that occurred in 2004 off the west
coast of northern Sumatra, Indonesia.
Since 2004, there have been three large earthquakes over 8.5.
Based on these trends, Stierman said he would expect another
large earthquake to occur in the near future.
“I wouldn’t bet this is the last one; there are lots of
possibilities. I would watch all of the subduction zones all
around the Pacific, especially those that haven’t had one
lately,” he said. “I don’t think the place where the Chilean
earthquake or the Alaskan earthquake broke; those are going to
take another 100 years. But any place that hasn’t had an
earthquake in 100 or 150 years, I think are the best
candidates.”
When asked where he thinks the next big earthquake will be,
Stierman said he expects a big one to occur in Northwestern
Canada, an area which has not seen a large earthquake in
almost 150 years.
Reports show that two days prior to the March 11 earthquake, a
7.2 earthquake occurred near the epicenter.
Stierman said the foreshocks were recorded but the biggest
difficulty is distinguishing between an earthquake and a
foreshock.
“The trouble is we still
foreshocks,” he said.
don’t
know
how
to
identify
Stierman added the only time when an earthquake was
successfully identified occurred in China and they “just got
lucky.”
Stierman said events such as the earthquake could be used as
learning experiences in the classroom. His class “Geological
Hazards and the Environment” is currently studying the
earthquake phenomena.
“Now is the time to teach,” Stierman said.