EVIDENCE OF AN EARTHQUAKE ON LAND
EVIDENCE OF AN EARTHQUAKE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA
UNDERSEA EARTHQUAKES!
THE ANCIENT MYSTERY OF WHY WHALES MASS STRAND IS FINALLY SOLVED BY A SEA CAPTAINby Capt. David Williams
Deafwhale Society, Inc.
david(at)deafwhale.com
skype: dw-williamsdownload latest scientific article: www.deafwhale.com/2013-science-article.pdf
The earthquake solution to the centuries-old mystery of why whales mass beach themselves is the originally creation of Captain David W. Williams and registered with the Writer's Guild of America—Reg. No: 10608118 (see copyright below)
SOLUTIONS TO RECENT STRANDINGS: World's Rarest Whale Dec 2010 King Island Nov 2012 Andaman Islands Oct 2012 New Zealand Oct 2012 Scotland Sept 2012 Florida Sept 2012 Cape Verde Aug 2012 Florida Dec 2013 Farewell Spit Jan 2014 Farewell Spit Jan 2014 Florida Jan 2014 mass stranding predicted Cape Cod Feb 2014 New Zealand Feb 2014 Kuwait Mar 2014 Cape Cod mass stranding prediction comes true Newfoundland mass stranding 16 Mar 2014
"Waves in the sea caused by earthquakes are of two different types. In the first type, a submarine earthquake may produce longitudinal oscillations that proceed at the velocity of sound waves. When reaching the surface, such longitudinal oscillations will be felt on board a ship as a shock that violently rocks the vessel. The shock may be so severe that the sailors believe their vessel has struck a rock, and several such reported “rocks” were indicated on early charts in waters where recent soundings have shown that the depth to the bottom is several thousand meters. There are many ship reports dealing with shock waves, particularly from regions in which seismological records show that submarine earthquakes are frequent."
"Tsunami is the second destructive waves caused by undersea earthquakes. These waves may reach enormous dimensions both in the open sea and near the coasts, and they proceed as ordinary long gravitational waves."
The above two paragraphs were excerpted from The Oceans, Their Physics, Chemistry, and General Biology. New York: Prentice-Hall, c1942 written by Professor Harald Sverdrup, Director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography 1936–1948SUMMARY OF THE EARTHQUAKE THEORY:
The sudden force that causes the rocky seabed to jerk about during and undersea earthquake (EQ) is not an actual blow, but a series of wrenching snaps, as billions of tons of rock, twisted and strained out of shape by an accumulation of forces exerted over centuries, suddenly lurches back toward an alignment that relieves the stress. If these snapbacks are aligned in the vertical plane, the seafloor will dance up and down violently like a gigantic piston, pushing and pulling at the bottom of the water column.
When a single snapback push vertically, a low frequency hydroacoustic compressional phase is generated in which the increase in water pressure during a magnitude 6 EQ might reach 2,000 pounds per square inch (psi) above the surrounding water pressure. When the seabed suddenly drops back, the motion pulls the water down with it and generates a negative pressure equal to a minus 2,000 psi. Said differently, the rocky seafloor dances vertically during certain undersea earthquakes (EQs) generating a series of extremely intense low frequency (LF) hydroacoustic compressions and decompressions that travel 1,500 meters per second towards the surface.
Earthquake (EQ) magnitude is only one factor determining the danger to a pod of whales diving above the epicenter. The intensity of the rapidly shifting over and under pressures (the real danger to any air-breathing mammal while diving) depends also on how near the earthquake (EQ) focal point is to the rock/water interface, and on the peak ground accelerations. Deeper focal points, 15 to 100+ km below the rock/water interface, allow the seismic shocks to spread out in the solid earth in a circular pattern, growing weaker and weaker before reaching the water interface.
On the other hand, spreading is severely limited during an EQ hypocentered only 2 to 3 km below the seabed/water interface. An extremely shallow magnitude 5 event might generate a 15-second series of LF (1-7 hertz) alterations in pressure at ~600 psi above and ~600 psi below ambient. Such drastic quick-changing water pressures above the epicenter of an extremely shallow EQ can easily exceed the mechanisms established by evolution to protect the diving whales from a barotraumatic injury.
Seismographs are not very reliable at determining depth when the EQ focus is less than 15 km, especially if the distance between the seismic station and the focal point is more than a few hundred miles. This is why seismic stations around the world report the depth of shallow EQs at a default value of ~10 km. New Zealand defaults depth to 33 km making it impossible to determine a whale-dangerous EQs from harmless ones. In the opinion of this researcher, magnitude, coupled with the distance from the EQ focal point to the rock/water interface, determines the speed at which the seafloor dances.
The dancing speed (peak ground acceleration) has the final say in determining the percentage of increase and decrease in ambient pressures during an undersea earthquake. This is so because, like atmospheric air, the natural tendency of water is to flow in a manner that balances pressure. This means that, when the speed of the dancing seafloor is more like a slow waltz, water above the epicenter will flow to the side before any great pressure can be obtained. On the other hand, when the seafloor dances a fast jitterbug, great pressures build up before water has time to flow to an area of lesser pressure.
It is the percentage of change in pressures that causes the injuries, making the depth of the whales when exposed an equally critical factor. The more shallow the pod, the lower the ambient pressure, the greater the percentage of change, and the greater the danger. The injuries occur because fluctuating overpressures and underpressures induce corresponding changes in the volume of the air held inside the whales' cranial air spaces in agreement with Boyle's gas law. Rapid, excessive changes in cranial air volume causes sinus barotrauma. It could be no other way.
It matters not whether these excessive changes in sinus air volume are induced by an undersea EQs, navy sonar units, seismic air cannons, explosions, volcanic eruptions, or the violent impacts of a heavenly bodies with the water's surface. Any rapid change in the surrounding water pressure during a feeding dive can injure entire pods of diving whales and dolphins if the pressure change exceeds the ability of the whales to compensate.
Underwater EQs, the focus of this presentation, are far more numerous than the other sources combined.
SINUS BAROTRAUMA KNOCKS OUT THEIR SENSE OF DIRECTION AND PREVENTS THEM FROM DIVING AND FEEDING
While the dimension of their flexible air chambers increase and decrease in tune with the ongoing compressions/decompressions caused by seafloor EQs, the nearby non-compressible bones, internal organs, muscles, fat, and blood retain their normal size.
A 15 second series of rapid expansions/deflations at the membranous interface between the flexible air spaces and the stationary anatomical parts establishes shearing forces that can induce barosinusitis, barotitis media, labyrinthine fistula, and other pressure-related diving injuries similar to sinus barotrauma, the most common injury in scuba divers.
Furthermore, because the air in the cranial air spaces serves underwater as acoustic mirrors to channel, focus, reflect, and isolate returning echoes in a fashion to make biosonar possible, any pressure-related disturbance that causes a breakdown in the cranial air sinus and air sacs will not only prevent the whales from diving and feeding themselves due to intense pain, but will also knock out their ability to echonavigate (ref #1). Intact and healthy sinuses, air sacs, middle-ear air chambers, and inner ears are ESSENTIAL for both diving and the proper function of biosonar.
Unable to navigate, a pod of whales or dolphins suffering earthquake induce barosinusitis would be as LOST as a blind man set adrift in a row boat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
Some scientists say that the EQ Theory is invalid because evolution would have surely provided a means to protect the whales. This is true; however, it appears as if modern fishing techniques have circumvented the path chosen by evolution. The oceans were teaming with pelagic whales and dolphins a few hundred years ago. There were so many on a given feeding ground that there was a real danger that the whales might overgraze and cause the squid breeding stock to collapse. Under such a scenario, the thinning of a few pods by seaquakes offered an evolutionary advantage as long as the pod survived. If only wounded, as is the case in the EQ Theory, the pods would swim downstream with the surface flow for 2-3 weeks, feeding every so often on the overabundant schools of small surface fish they easily caught a few feet below the surface. Eventually, with ample food and fresh water, they recovered from their sinus injury and went on to populate a new area. They had no biosonar connection with the seafloor during their recovery period so they had no acoustic memories of how to get back to their old feeding grounds. Thus, undersea earthquakes served both to thin the pods from the mid-ocean ridges and to spread the species around the world. In other words, seaquakes served an evolutionary advantage prior to the 19th Century; however, now that purse seining factory ships have devastated the schools of surface fish, injured pods are no longer recovering. More pods are stranding with less and less members per pod. As it stands now, seaquakes alone could spell the end to pelagic odontocete in less than fifty years. (see more on evolution below)
This researcher is not the first to suggest an injury in the cranial
air sinuses and air sacs would destroy navigation in whales. My insight came from a sentence I read in a 1966 book on whales edited by Professor Ken Norris. It was written by a man who had spent his entire life dissecting these animals, trying to figure out the working of their biosonar system. Dr. Peter Purves, the famous whale curator at the British Museum of Natural History wrote: It is very easy to imagine a condition in which the air-sac system has broken down, so that it is no longer reflecting, and, with the isolation of the essential organs of hearing disrupted, the animal may lose its sense of direction." (ref #2) Dr. Purves' sentence was the key I used to solve the ancient mystery of why whales beach. Earthquake-induced barotrauma would indeed cause the breakdown of the air sac system, and cause whales to lose their sense of direction.
The air-sac system Dr. Purves referred to are a grouping of small sacs of air positioned between the two cochleas, acoustically isolating them from each other in a fashion to allow true stereoscopic hearing. Indeed, if the air-sac system breaks down due exposure to a series of rapid and excessive over and under diving pressures, both cochleas will receive acoustic stimulation at the same time, confusing their excellent sense of direction. It is practically impossible to examine these air sacs in a field necropsy. Furthermore, since the air sacs go flat when the animal dies, there is no practically way of examining them in a dead animal.
WHERE SHOULD PEOPLE EXPECT TO ENCOUNTER A POD OF LOST WHALES UNABLE TO DIVE AND FEED THEMSELVES?
Because salt water is 800 times denser and 55 times more viscous than air, hydrodynamic drag to swimming in any direction except downstream is greatly increased. For example, swimming against a 3-knot current is more difficult than walking into a gale-force wind. Divers hanging on the anchor line in a 1-knot current will feel their bodies moving into a horizontal position like a flag flying in a moderate breeze. A simple turn of the head to the side in a 2-knot current will wash away a diver’s mask; a 3-knot current can easily carry distracted divers several kilometers from the dive boat before they realize it. The reason is simple. The drag force exerted on a diver by the current is proportional to the water’s velocity squared (ref #3). This means that when the speed of a current doubles, hydrodynamic drag increases four times. Bottom line is that EQ-injured whales with no sense of direction, will ALWAYS be pointed headfirst into the downstream path of least drag. Lost whales will always swim with the flow of the surface currents; it could be no other way!
Because the current controlling their swim path is the same energy that carries each grain of sand to create a sustainable beach, people can expect to find lost pods on sandy beaches, not rocky or muddy shores. Injured pods will land on a rocky or muddy shore only when a strong offshore gale forces surface currents to flow to areas without beaches.
Many people, including whale scientists and those in charge of rescue teams, focus their eyes on the whales and ignore the direction of the surface currents. Not seeing the surface flow might be a case of selective vision in which the mind blocks out much of the visual field and focuses on the whales and other commotion nearby. In other words, one must concentrate specifically on the water's flow in order to see the tell tale signs of direction. It might even take some training and practice.
With many decades of ocean-going experience, I can glance at the ocean surface and tell within seconds the direction in which the surface waters are flowing. I can even watch videos and TV news reports of whale strandings and see instantly that the poor whales are either swimming with the downstream flow, or they are milling around in a slack current.
That whales, on their way to a beaching, always swim downstream is the most observable consistent observation. This factual tidbit proves beyond the slightest doubt that stranded whales have no sense of direction; it is the second key to solving the mystery of why whales strand.
Is all fairness, there is one team of smart scientists from Nova Southwestern University that realized there was a close association between shoreward-flowing surface currents and whale mass strandings. Their paper, entitled Environmental Correlates of Cetacean Mass Stranding Sites in Florida (ref #4) shows that mass beachings occur only when the wind blows in a direction that creates downwelling currents that flow on the bottom away from the beach. When the water near shore is in the downwelling mode, the surface currents are flowing towards the beach. On the other hand, no mass strandings occurred when the wind blows in a direction that creates upwelling currents that flow along the bottom to the beach. During upwelling, the surface waters flow out to sea and away from shore. Their work, ignored by most whale scientists, offers the perfect explanation for why the US East Coast receives far more mass beachings than the US West Coast even though the West Coast has far greater population of whales. The West Coast is noted for its upwelling shoreline that would direct non-navigating whales out to sea. The West Coast is also noted for a healthy shark and killer whale population just offshore.
Upwelling and downwelling wind conditions is the proper scientific way to describe the airflow needed to generate shoreward flowing surface currents that guide injured pods ashore. Here's a video that will explain how the winds control the surface currents, which in turn control the swim path of EQ-injured whales.
It is obvious that the loss of their sense of direction is the only way to explain why a pod of offshore deep-water dolphins would swim into a shallow backwater lagoon on an incoming tide and not be able to find their way back out when the tide falls. Navigation failure is the only way to explain why offshore odontocete would even be in shallow water near the mouth of an inlet in the first place. Furthermore, if the lost whales were not lucky enough to be washed back out to the open sea, their fate is to be left stuck in the mud when the tide recedes. It is obvious that these deep-water acoustically-dependent animals have suffered some type of powerful disturbance in diving pressures that has injured their cranial air spaces and knocked out their acoustic sense of direction. There is no other answer.
Watch videos of strandings, check the tides, verify the direction of the wind, and look at the breaking waves washing ashore. You will see that stranded whales NEVER swim more than 50 meters upstream before being turn by the current and pointed downstream.
Said differently, where surface currents regularly wash ashore, there are sandy beaches, seaweed, flotsam, driftwood, whale carcasses, and sometimes a pod of live-stranded whales or dolphins. Where currents do not normally wash ashore, there will be a rocky or muddy coastline and no beached cetaceans unless a strong shoreward gale generates an infrequent shoreward flow. Watch the videos and look for the flotsam washed in with the whales. You must admit the flotsam was washed ashore by the current... why not the whales too?
SELFISH HERD BEHAVIOR --- NOT STRONG SOCIAL BONDS
After exposure to a devastating undersea EQ,
a pod of whales or dolphins will huddle close to each other, exhibiting the herd behavior seen in 4-legged mammals on the plains of African when lions are closing in. The whales do this for protection against the sharks that begin circling soon after the injury. Sharks know the whales are in trouble because they can sense the stress in the pod and smell the blood and other body fluids from many miles away. The sharks may even interpret the EQ rumblings as a dinner bell.
The highly stressed EQ injured pod, frightened by the hungry sharks moving in on them, huddle even closer and start swimming away. They are quickly turned by the flow and pointed headfirst in a downstream direction with a vicious pack of starving sharks now trailing behind them, picking off any stragglers that fall behind.
The tight bonds (social cohesion) that were so beneficial to the pod in breeding and feeding are instantly broken. Self preservation rules the behavior of each animal during this life-or-death crisis.
The risk to each individual that he or she will be the next shark-attack victim is greatest closer to the prowling predators and decreases further away. The more dominant least-injured pod members will obtain a low-risk positions out front of the pod farthest from the sharks, whereas those suffering serious injuries and other subordinates will be forced into the higher risk positions behinds the leaders and closer to the trailing sharks that continuously cull the weakest, most-seriously injured (those that lag behind). Only the pod members with the least injuries will escape the sharks and survive long enough to strand on a beach.
This is identical behavior revealed by the Selfish Herd Theory. This behavior is often seen by human observers as the lost pod approaches a beach; however, the witnesses misunderstand what is really playing out in front of their eyes. They form the false belief that a few whales in front of the pod are injured leaders; those following close behind are healthy pod members following the ones out front because of a strong social bond. This is the favorite theory of whale scientists and the media. The scientists even say that the bond is so strong between pod members that the healthy whales wind up getting stranded because they will not leave their love ones behind.This follow-the-leader theory first surfaced in the 1880s. It is also the favorite of the rescue teams. The public must believe that the whales being push back out to sea are healthy and will survive, otherwise donations and moral support will tumble. The best way to promote a strong chance of survival in the eyes of the public is to bombard the media with the follow-the-sick-leader concept. In truth, it is the fear of the vicious sharks below the surface and just out of sight of the observers that keep the non-navigating whales moving downstream towards the beach.
Instead of protecting the young and other sick pod members by taking a position between the sharks and the rest of the pod, the non-navigating selfish pod leaders, wanting to save their own butts, will be the first to go ashore because they are out front staying clear of the sharks. The rest of the pod will follow in a blind-following-blind fashion because they are being guided by the same surface currents that guide the leaders. This will create the illusion that the pod is following a sick leader due to strong social cohesion. The truth is that the few in front are in the best condition, whereas those bringing up the rear are the weakest.
All the experts need to do is observe all the sharks in the water during and after beachings. Hundreds of examples have occurred similar to the recent incident at a beach in Western Australia. This researcher has even been able to coordinate human shark attacks with periods in which seaquake-injured whales would be swimming near certain shorelines. We could make the ocean must safer for recreation if governments would use the Earthquake Theory to predict when injured whales might be offshore of their areas of responsibility. However, as long as whale scientists continue to ignore my work, swimmers, divers, and surfers will continue to die in a similar fashion to how many whales end their lives (in the bellies of sharks).
Selfish herd behavior has been overlooked by whale experts and rescue teams even though self-preservation is an almost universal hallmark of life. Scientists also incorrectly say that whales freed from the beach will not leave the area right away because they have such a strong social attachment. Just the opposite is true.
Those that were not injured during the earthquake long ago abandoned the pod to their fate. Only those that have lost their sense of direction remain with the pod by visual and acoustic contact. The injured pod members can still hear but cannot determine direction. Hearing the cries of their pod mates might alarm them, but truth be known, the calls are more likely warnings to stay away instead of cries for help. Those not beached will mill around near where their pod members are stuck in the sand for two reasons: (a) the lingering whales believe the sharks are waiting just offshore, and (b) the current near shore is often slack and, with no current, the whales have no sense of direction. When the tide does start to flow back towards deep water, the rescuers know they must push most of the whales out to sea at the same time because no single whale wants to be first to meet up with the jaws of death. This is a time when it is every whale for herself. This is true selfish herd behavior.
The senseless follow-the-leader theory is often quoted by scientists and rescue teams because it allows them to brag about successful rescues. If they admit the entire pod is injured and being dogged by hungry sharks, then they can not claim to have SAVED THE WHALES. If they were honest, they would instead say that they had SUCCESSFULLY FED THE SHARKS, which is not all bad.
One other point about the sharks... they will not attack the collective herd because healthy toothed whales and dolphins have ways of protecting themselves. A few pod members can distract the sharks while others swim down and come up like a rocket, ramming the sharks in the liver. The massive liver of a shark is its most vulnerable spot and the whales know it. The sharks do not know the injured whales cannot defend themselves so they use caution and wait until a single whale swims off by itself. The whales know this, which explains why they will not swim away for the beach alone.
The sharks drive the pod downstream about 100 to 125 miles per day. The actually stranding occurs ~2,300 miles downstream and ~23 to ~30 days after the injurious earthquake. This research assumes that shortly after injury, the whales are able to avoid getting too close to shore. But after 2-3 weeks they become weakened and less able to stay away from the sand.
PROOF THAT UNDERSEA EARTHQUAKES ARE DANGEROUS TO WHALES
Believe it or not, a thousand earthquakes every year release the energy of the atomic bomb that flattened Hiroshima in 1945 (15,000 tons of TNT-equivalent). Ninety (90%) percent of these events go unnoticed by man because they erupt under the ocean's surface along mid-oceanic ridges in the backyard of pelagic whales and dolphins known to repeatedly mass strand themselves. Mid-ocean ridges, the major feeding grounds of herds of deep-water toothed whales and dolphins, are by far the most seismically-active places on earth. The sheer power and numbers make it downright foolish to believe that undersea earthquakes are harmless to offshore toothed whales.
On page 36 of his book on sound imaging in the ocean, German underwater acoustic's Professor Peter Willie, the former head of NATO's Undersea Research Center, displays three similar sonograms and compares the noise generated by undersea earthquakes and volcanic explosions with that of underwater nuclear explosions of several thousand tons of TNT-equivalent (ref #5). He says earthquake sounds are the loudest underwater sounds ever produced. He also cautions the we should be aware of the underwater rumbling of about 7,000 outstanding, dramatic geodynamic earthquake events per year worldwide, each of a thousand tons of TNT-equivalent and more." He ought to know because it's his job to determine the acoustic differences between underwater nuclear explosions and natural catastrophic events such as earthquakes.
Now watch the SHOCKING VIDEO below and decide if Professor Willie is telling the truth. You will first hear the roar of an earthquake that has traveled 900 miles in the solid seabed as seismic P-waves, and then entered the water below the hydrophone as a series of acoustic pressure waves. In the shocking last part, you will hear the God-awesome irritating noise of seaquake waves that have traveled in the water for 900 miles before over-modulating the hydrophone. If you know any whale scientists, suggest they also watch this video and explain to you why diving whales would not be injured by such a God-awesome disturbance in their backyard. And, if this video, or your whale expert convinces you that undersea earthquakes are harmless to a pod of diving whales, then close this webpage because my evidence does not get any stronger.
While thinking about this evidence, remind yourself that a series of rapid and excessive changes in diving pressures is any air-breathing divers worse nightmare come true! No diver could ascend from such an onslaught unharmed.
Whale-dangerous undersea earthquakes are not Top Secret. I would highly recommend any interested party use "seaquakes" as a key word and search Google Books. They will find over 500 publications that discuss these intense pressure changes (Link).
Intense pressure disturbances are also called T waves or T Phase waves . T waves (seaquakes) are low frequency acoustic pressure waves that travel great distances from their source. There are thousands of publications (Link) listed on Google Search that discussed the production of T-Phase waves by submarine earthquakes.
Mark Leonard, a geophysicist at Geoscience Australia, revealed how a series of intense oscillations in ambient pressure (t-waves) traveled underwater 1,800 km across the Tasman Sea and struck the Australian Coast and woke up hundreds of people near Sydney (ref #6). Wow... it's hard to believe that earthquake pressure waves can travel underwater for 1800 km and arrive at Sydney with enough power to shake the continent so hard to wake people out of a deep sleep. I guarantee, if there had been a pod of whales on a feeding dive when the t-waves crossed the Tasman Sea, New Zealand would have witnessed another mass beaching.
Seaquakes are also reported by the crews of ships, submarines, and by human divers as shock waves and violent disturbances in water pressures (ref #7). The pressure jump behind the front of such seismoacoustic waves can attain 1.5 MPa, or 15 atmospheres above ambient. The average frequency of these pressure changes is ~3 hertz. The vertical component of the seafloor-displacement velocity is estimated at about 10-100 cm/s, the accelerations of floor motions can amount to about 10 m/s² and the area of dangerous oscillations at ~3 hertz might attain 100 square km (ref #8).
EVOLUTION AND EARTHQUAKES
As mentioned above, many scientists say the EQ theory is flawed because, after 50 millions years of living in a seismically-prone ocean, whales have surely evolved a means to deal with EQs. This is likely true. Many seafloor EQs give off high frequency (HF) seismo-acoustic signals a few hours prior to the main shock (ref #9). Some even give off HF signals and no main shock occurs. Whales would have learned as youngsters that these HF signals were coming from an earthquake preparation zone. On the other hand, since not all EQs give off advanced acoustic warnings, and advance warnings don't always signal danger, it is conceivable that a pod of whales might get sidetrack or be too busy feeding and push their luck by not heeding the warning signals.
If the earthquake theory is valid, whales would hear EQ vibrations at a great distance, and know that they must not linger in seismically active areas. For example, the calving season would be a very critical time for baleen whales making it a must that they select seismically quiet zones for their calving grounds. Gray whales that feed by plowing up the sediment on the bottom would be especially vulnerable to earthquakes and most assuredly avoid EQ hotspots. Migrating great whales would know to move quickly through dangerous areas. They might even use earthquake noise coming from hotspots as an aide to navigation. It would be very easy to fix their position in the open ocean by comparing the azimuths of several different active EQ zones. EQ noise is no doubt used by whales in ways that will amaze us. To ignore the role that this noise plays in the life and evolution of whales might be the single greatest mistake made by our experts. Studying how whales avoid EQ injury could save millions of human lives.
The problem is that every so often evolutionary adaptation fails to warm the whales in time and they get injured.
As far as remodeling the sinuses to deal with a sudden increases in diving pressures above an EQ epicenter, evolution was limited in this direction because toughening the cranial air spaces would have reduced the efficiency of the biosonar system. Strengthening the sinuses membranes would also make them less flexible, which would cause greater injury during rapid fluctuations in pressure.
Those that detail the anatomy of whales do describe special pressure-regulating mechanisms that have obvious evolved after many millions of years living in a seismically active ocean. But just because natural selection can produce amazing adaptations, there's no reason to believe it is an all-powerful force, urging organisms on, constantly pushing them in the direction of progress. Natural selection is not all-powerful; it does not produce perfection. This is apparent in the human populations around us: people may not have the right genes to prevent certain diseases, plants may not have the genes to survive a drought, or a predator may not be fast enough to catch her prey every time she is hungry. No population or organism is perfectly adapted. Thus, it is likely that diving whales encounter natural catastrophic disturbances on the seafloor that generate sudden changes in the surrounding water pressures that catch them by surprise and easily overcome their evolved protection.
In my opinion, detecting acoustic precursors and helping whales recover from seaquake injury was the best evolution could do to protect them from EQ pressure waves and still allow them to dive to great depths.
REFERENCES:
1. Williams, Capt. D., 2014, No Sense of Direction in Beached Whales (Link accessed 08 March 2014
2. Kenneth Stafford Norris, 1966, Whales, Dolphins, and Porpoises, (see Dr. Fraser's comments on p620), University of California Press, (Link accessed 08 March 2014)
3. The Effects of Underwater Currents on Divers’ Performance and Safety, July 1987, The International Marine Contractors Association Publication #AODC 047 (Link accessed 8 March 2014)
4. Walker, Rebekah J.; Keith, Edward O.; Yankovsky, Alexander E, and Odell, Danial K. (2005) Environmental Correlates of Cetacean Mass Stranding Sites in Florida, Marine Mammal Science 21(2):327–335 (April 2005) (Link accessed 26 March 2014)
5. Willie, Peter., Sound Images of the Ocean: in Research and Monitoring, Vol 1, Springer, Dec 6, 2005, 512 pages (see Chap. 3. p36) (Link accessed on 2 March 2014)
6. Mark Leonard T-phase Perception: The August 2003, Mw 7.1 New Zealand Earthquake Felt in Sydney 1,800 km Away, Seismological Research Letters Volume75, Number4 July/August2004 (Link accessed 4 March 2014)
7. Mironov, M. A. (1998) Cavitational Mechanism of Acoustic Signal Generation by an Underwater Earthquake, Acoustical Physics, Vol 44, No. 4, pp 445-451
8. Boris Levin and Mikhail Nosov (2009), Physics of Tsunamis, Springer Science (section on seaquakes)
9. E. V. Sasorova, B. W. Levin, and V. E. Morozov, 2008, Hydro-seismic-acoustical monitoring of submarine earthquakes preparation: observations and analysis. Advances in Geoscience, Adv. Geosci., 14, 99–104, 2008 http://www.adv-geosci.net/14/99/2008/adgeo-14-99-2008.pdf
RECOMMENDED READING IN ENGLISH
Lawson, Andrew C. (1906) Seaquake Questionnaire, Earthquake Investigation Commission, Survey Questions, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-6000Professor Nicholas Ambraseys, A Damaging Seaquake, Earthquake Engineering, and Structural Dynamics, v. 13, pages 421 - 424 (1985)K. Hove (1983) SEAQUAKES, an Hazard to Offshore Platforms?, Seismicity and Seismic Risk in the Offshore North Sea Area, Edited by A.R. Ritsemia, A. Gurpinar, Published by D. Reidal Publishing Co., Dordrecht, Holland ISBN 90-277-1529-7
Clyde E. Nishimura (1) and Christopher W. Clark (2) Underwater earthquakes noise levels and its possible effect on marine mammals, Acoust. Soc. Am. 94, 1849 (1993) 1. Naval Res. Lab., Code 7420, Washington, DC 20375, 2. Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY 14850
Birch, F. S. (1966). An earthquake recorded at Sea. Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, 56(2), 361-366.
Quann J., Eberstein, and Curtis S. (1972) A Possible Shock Effect Associated with Seaquakes Goddard Space Flight Center (NASA-TM-X-66096)CHATTERJEE, P., JAIN, R., & SALPEKAR, V. (2000). Hydrodynamic pressure due to seaquakes in deep ocean. In The Proceedings of the... International Offshore and Polar Engineering Conference (Vol. 4, pp. 220-226). International Society of Offshore and Polar Engineers.
Lompoc Seaquake of 1927, California Institute of Technology, Southern California Earthquake Data Center, California Significant Earthquakes and Faults
Roland Von Huene, (1972) Seaquakes, The Great Alaska Earthquake of 1964, Volume 5
By National Research Council (U.S.). Committee on the Alaska Earthquake, National Academy of Science Washington D.C. ISBN: 0-309-01605-3 (page 13)Professor Paul G. Richards, (1971) A Theory for Pressure Radiation from Ocean-Bottom Earthquakes, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of American, Vol. 61, No. 3, pp. 707-721, June, 1971
Uenishi, K. (2013). On the dynamics of generation of seaquakes. Rock Dynamics and Applications-State of the Art, 341.
Uenishi, K.; Sakurai, S. (2013) On the Generation of Seaquakes and Their Connections with Earthquake Source Mechanisms, American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2013, abstract #S13B-03, Bibliographic Code: 2013AGUFM.S13B..03U
Williams, Capt. D., (2014) Surface Currents Determine the Travel Path of Non-Navigating Whales and Dolphins Suffering from Biosonar Failure Due to Barotrauma in the Sinuses and/or Middle-Ear Cavities
Williams, Capt. D. (2013) Theories about why whales and dolphins mass beach themselves
Williams, Capt. D. 2012, Seaquake/Vessel Encounters 1900 to 2009
Williams, Capt. D. 2012, Seaquake/Vessel Encounters 1799 to 1899
Williams, Capt. D. 1998, Sailing Vessel Mary Celeste Abandoned During a Seaquake
RECOMMENDED READING IN GERMAN
Rudolph, E. Ueber submarine Erdbeben und Eruptionen. In Beitrage zur Geophysik; Prof. Dr. Georg Gerland, Ed. E. Schweizerbart'sche Verlagshandlung (E. Koch): Stuttgart 1887; Vol. I, pp. 133-373. (part 1) (part 2) (part 3) (part 4)
Rudolph, E. Ueber submarine Erdbeben und Eruptionen. In Beitrage zur Geophysik; Prof. Dr. Georg Gerland, Ed. E. Schweizerbart'sche Verlagshandlung (E. Koch): Stuttgart 1895; Vol. II, pp. 537-666.
Rudolph, E. Ueber submarine Erdbeben und Eruptionen. In Beitrage zur Geophysik; Prof. Dr. Georg Gerland, Ed. Verlag von Wilhelm Engelmann: Leipzig, 1898; Vol. III, pp. 273-336
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