On September 4th, a 7.1 magnitude earthquake struck New Zealand. Pictured above is a railroad track that crossed the fault line near Rolleston. Geographer Dave Petley of the American Geophysical Union writes:
The second image is particularly interesting. Note how the rails show high levels of deformation whilst the surrounding ground shows comparatively little. Notice also how the big kink on the left side has pushed the ballast aside and into the track side ditch This has happened on the right side too, but to a lesser extent. The right side bend nearest the camera has pushed the ballast towards the camera.
My initial hypothesis here (I am no expert on railway track deformation) in order to stimulate discussion is that the buckling may be the result of compressional deformation across a broad zone. The compression on the very strong railway line was accommodated when a weak point was found, leading to a comparatively rapid deformation to form the main buckle on the left. This then concentrated stress on both sides of the buckle, allowing the other (right side) bends to form.
Link via Gizmodo | Photo: Malcolm Teasdale
timelapse of the big one and the continuing after shocks (30+ a day) using google maps and geonet data.
But reading the newslinks they provide over there, they had a rather huge problem.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2eCjeLaRHk&feature=player_embedded
Trust me, having lived through this quake I can tell you that this damage is not at all surprising. The earth shook in a lateral movement. There was very little "up and down". For the record, the quake yielded 648 kilotons of energy, and was only 20 miles deep. Thats the equivalent of 45 Hiroshima bombs, practically directly below where this image was taken.
So, what happens to gravel when shaken? It gets flung quite widely. Steel rails will bend, but not get stretched, unless under a high temperature to make it pliable. They would be straight, lying in pieces, scattered like gravel. Nice try.
How about simply Googling that Earthquake and seeing the complete damage it did.
What you see in the image is a compression failure, not a fault movement deflection. This is why the rest of the landscape is not deformed. This makes it extremely dangerous as those rails are still under extreme pressure to remain deflected as they are, like a spring.
I would guess in order to repair those rails, they'd have to place cutting charges on them and get the heck out of Dodge.
I came up with 42 extra pixels.
Nuff said.
that said the destruction in the latest quake was pretty epic
A quick google for NZ earthquake and railroad yielded the above link.
It has a great photoshop, they even turned the locomotive over in it.
Here's a great one. The second picture on this link is a different angle of the same deformed track. The angles apear even sharper from the new perspective, and imposible to photoshop.
Remember: Google is your friend.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2eCjeLaRHk&feature=player_embedded
Watch the first 10 seconds of this vid. Nothing fake about it. Try living through a 7.1 quake and then you are qualified to call whatever you want.