Posts

Seaquakes Cause 65 Pilot Whales to Beach in Golden Bay on 14-18 January 2014

Image
Details of 3 seaquakes that might have caused this stranding: http://www.emsc-csem.org/Earthquake/earthquake.php?id=349210 http://www.emsc-csem.org/Earthquake/earthquake.php?id=349185 http://www.emsc-csem.org/Earthquake/earthquake.php?id=349169 The pod of ~85 pilot whales that beached themselves repeatedly between 14-18 January 2014 were injured by excessive pressure changes (seaquakes) above the epicenter of 3 quakes that erupted in the seafloor of the Southern Ocean about 5,000 km upstream from Farewell Spit on 22 December 2013 (see links above). Strong winds caused rough seas, which separated the pod in Golden Bay. Twelve whales went ashore with the shoreward flow of the incoming tide on the morning of 14 January. That night, as the tide started washing out to sea, the rescuers refloated the whales and guided them back into waist deep water and let them go. They swam a few kilometers away, but when the tide started rising and the surface currents began flowing back to the

Earthquake Causes Pilot Whales to Beach in Golden Bay, New Zealand

Image
On 5 January 2014, 39 pilot whales stranded at Golden Bay. On 16 December 2013, at 01:07 AM when the pod was likely on a feeding dive,  a shallow magnitude 5.7 earthquake suddenly erupted in the seafloor off the West Coast of S. Island, N.Z. The focal point of the seismic shaking--defaulted to 10 km below the ocean's surface--might have actually been no more than 4-6 kilometers deep in the seabed. As shown by the beach ball outlines below, the direction of the first motion in this event was vertical. The P and S waves punched the rock/water interface with up and down motion similar to a gigantic piston, pushing and pulling at the bottom of the water column, generating potent changes in water pressure directly above the epicenter. Seismic over and under pressure disturbances cause barotrauma in the cranial sinuses and air sacs. Since this enclosed air is used as acoustic mirrors to funnel and channel sound waves, the injury immediately disables the biosonar system of all the