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posted by CoolHand on Wednesday December 27 2017, @04:58PM   Printer-friendly
from the shake-rattle-and-roll dept.

https://nypost.com/2017/11/21/earths-slowing-rotation-could-cause-huge-earthquakes-in-2018/

High-budget Hollywood disaster flicks love to make up weird natural phenomena to vaguely explain why a bunch of crazy catastrophes are about to threaten the very existence of mankind, but they're almost always complete bunk. Now, a new study featuring actual science suggests that 2018 could see a spike in huge earthquakes around the globe and it's thanks to the Earth's rotation slowing down.

The research, which was presented in a paper by scientists at the University of Colorado at Boulder and the University of Montana at Missoula, focuses on historic earthquake trends and seems to draw a pretty strong link between periods of slower Earth rotation and rashes of major quakes.

It sure sounds like a sci-fi plot point, but the science is based purely in reality. The study's authors plotted earthquake activity going back over 100 years and thanks to the wealth of data available they were able to determine that the temporary slowing of Earth's rotation seems to be linked to the most devastating and frequent earthquake outbreaks.


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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by anubi on Thursday December 28 2017, @08:33AM (1 child)

    by anubi (2828) on Thursday December 28 2017, @08:33AM (#615036) Journal

    I typed my earlier reply on the phone... and I had to be brief because it takes forever and a day to post that way.

    The point I was trying to make was that report was behind a paywall, and some people will pay to see it.

    Frojack posted his quite insightful reply, for free, on this forum... bringing into question the science behind conservation of angular momentum. Pure science as seen by an engineer. Another embodiment of my tagline about testing all things and keeping that which is good.

    Just because one pays for something - does not mean its good. And just because it was freely given, doesn't mean it has no worth.

    Seems there is often little correlation between something's price and its worth.

    But, I have seen that there are folks who love to pay for things... useless things... because what they are really looking for are scapegoats. Their need is not for results, but they are looking to buy ass insulation. They are looking to show that they exercised "due diligence" in their job. They need to be able to show its someone else's fault.

    The people who are good at this can earn an order of magnitude more than those who have their "minds closed" to their perceptions of what known physics allows.

    On another thread, I posited my stance on Eagle's new DRM and licensing models. Some would call me a whiner. Some would gladly take what I volunteered on this forum as "market research", coming straight from the guy who was using their product. But often times, the decision maker would much rather pay for a professionally prepared market research report that has been custom tailored to what he wants to hear. That way, when sales don't pan out because the little people like me have been run off to alternative methods of doing our work, the business executive who made those decisions can blame the "disappointing quarters" on the market research reports, and all the highly paid people simply sweep it all under the rug, deduct their salaries and bonuses from operating expenses, and leave the investors holding the empty purse.

    While, all along, the information was posted, free. But the big guys seem to feel if its free, its worthless. Gotta pay so the one who got paid is accountable.

    --
    "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
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  • (Score: 2) by coolgopher on Thursday December 28 2017, @09:44AM

    by coolgopher (1157) on Thursday December 28 2017, @09:44AM (#615048)

    You just summed up why open source / free software can be such a hard sell in large companies. +1 Pony