D.O.'s+Earthquake+3

Back to Ligo Data Back to Identified Earthquakes LIGO Project Instructions September 05 Data

__** The earthquake taking place at about 11:30 is my third earthquake at 0.0290 97.6040 located off the east cost of Indonesia. I know it is kind of hard to pick out, but that is becasue it is a low magnitude earthquake.
 * __Earthquake 3

Here is a map of the earthquake: media type="googlemap" key="http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=101783471959187101034.00044b1d68b6a2d0700bb&ll=0.029,97.604&spn=0,0&output=embed&s=AARTsJofrxjBHmzyrizWWsb4_cmzMMzK-A" width="425" height="350" As you can see from the placement of the earthquake above, it is traveling through water for almost all of the time, so to calculate how long it took to get to LIGO, we will use P-waves. P-waves typically travel between 5-8 km/s according to the Purdue site for earthquakes, and the same will also go for the two other earthquakes I have identified. The total distance was about 13,728 km.

Below is the information for my earthquake and the math.

Date Time Lat Lon Depth Mag Magt Nst Gap Clo RMS SRC Event ID

2005/09/06 11:00:48.61 0.0290 97.6040 27.60 5.60 Mw 208 0.84 NEI 200509064035

If you take 13,728 km and divide it by the average speed of P-waves, which is 6 km/s, you get 2,288 seconds for the total time. Divide 2,288 sec. by 60 sec. to get the time in minutes and the answer is about 38 minutes.

The initial time of the earthquake was at 11:00:48 GMT time and LIGO received it at a little past 11:30 and the P-waves of the quake mostly traveled through water making this earthquakes e.t.a. a perfect fit for the time that LIGO detectors picked it up.