Just after 9 this morning there was a 5.9 mag earthquake off the coast of Taidong between green and orchid islands. It was enough to get me out of my chair to steady things like the TV and cabinets, but passed pretty quickly. A lot of quakes here seem like single jolts, but this did go on for about 10 seconds. Didn't notice any unusual animal behaviour before it.

There has been a flurry of seismic activity over the last few months and esp the last week, including 7 (!) quakes of mag 4 or greater in the last two days. Was that the culminating one? Or just part of the intro?

Found this informative report from the China Post:

"The quake's epicenter was approximately between Taitung and Green Island, Orchid Island, the two triangular area between the center of the Islands. Currently there are around the disaster has not yet reported.

The earthquake is more rapid, to go, although not to the violent shaking for 10 seconds, is still felt around in the Taiwan, Taitung coastal towns East River, Green Island, Orchid Island , Taimali are four seismic intensity.

Kaohsiung news from the quake, the local people clearly feel the shaking of the building, with no clouds scattered earthquake in Japan, some people with a "flight pack" to escape from the high-rise residence abroad, or hiding in the corner, under a table, etc.. However, the public is still time to go downstairs, shaking stopped.

"Central Weather Bureau" told the media that Taiwan's average of two to three times a month over the scale of five earthquakes above magnitude 6 is two to three times the average annual . Three times so far this year have occurred in the scale of five earthquakes to 20, 5.9 earthquake occurred in the largest, the other two were in the Feb. 1 off the coast of Hualien and Taitung on February 15 off the coast, were a 5.5 scale. (End)"

I started noticing about two weeks ago, I think, maybe longer, that there was a lot of unusual earthquake activity in central and southern Taiwan and off the southeast coast in the 3.0 - 4.5 range. Normally, most quakes are centered around the NE quadrant of Taiwan, but over the last couple of weeks there were numerous small quakes scattered around the island, which is quite unusual.

So you raise the $10,000 question - was today's quake a culminating event or just one in a series of something still moving. Of course, if one were to get philosophical, one could argue that of course it's an 'ongoing event', but you get my drift.

I think a lot of this goes back to the Indonesian tsunami, however many years ago that was now. That was an enormous event, and it had to set some things in motion. Then of course more recently there was Japan, not to mention a number of 7+ quakes in SE Asia in the meantime. These were huge events, even from a geological perspective, and it would seem to make sense that that instability did not just settle all of the sudden. I think we're in a cycle of increased seismic activity.

I'm going to have more time on my hands after tomorrow afternoon, so I think I'll look up some of the readily available data on the subject. It's fascinating, and it's a great adrenalin rush... unless of course you get buried in rubble and die a slow, agonizing death.

Yeah, that's an interesting point about the tsunami earthquakes being geologically momentus events that would logically seem to have some flow-on effect.

This is probably just a complete coincidence but it's interesting to see how that today's storm cell seems to have formed right on top of earthquake epicentre. There is some theory about a gas being released that can form clouds.

Sort of like an earth fart perhaps?

There have been two quakes in Pingtung County in the last 36 hours, which is not normal.

The weather here in Donghe is very strange at the moment. It's completely still, even at our place where we always get mountain breezes at night. It's extremely humid, and the bugs are going nuts. It just seems weird, though granted this is only my second June here.

A new low has formed off the Marshall Islands, heading west. Looks like it could develop into something substantial.

And another one today in Pingtung County. These aren't aftershocks of the Taitung quake. Totally different faults.

http://www.cwb.gov.tw/V7e/earthquake/Data/quake/EE0609124148086.htm