Solifugae

There are thirteen families belonging to the order Solifugae:.
. While one species, Rhagodes nigrocinctus, does appear to possess venom, its bite is not known to be dangerous to humans. A recently proposed theory suggests that some earthquakes may occur in a sort of earthquake storm, where one earthquake will trigger a series of earthquakes each triggered by the previous shifts on the fault lines, similar to aftershocks, but occurring years later. There is no chance of death directly caused by the bite, but, due to the strong muscles of their chelicerae, they can produce a proportionately large, ragged wound which is prone to infection. These oscillations of the earth are either due to the deformation of the Earth by tide caused by the Moon or the Sun, or other phenomena. However, the greatest threat they pose to humans is their bite in self-defense when one tries to handle them.
Another type of movement of the Earth is observed by terrestrial spectroscopy.

Due to their bizarre appearance and the fact that they produce a hissing sound when they feel threatened, many people are startled or even afraid of them. Earthquakes such as these, that are caused by human activity, are referred to by the term induced seismicity. Solifugae, however, do not produce such an anesthetic, and, like most creatures with any sort of survival instinct, they do not attack prey larger than themselves unless they feel they must, such as situations of defense or protection of young. Thus scientists have been able to monitor, using the tools of seismology, nuclear weapons tests performed by governments that were not disclosing information about these tests along normal channels. The story goes that the creature will inject some anesthetizing venom into the exposed skin of its sleeping victim, then feed voraciously, leaving the victim to awaken with a gaping wound. Finally, ground shaking can also result from the detonation of explosives. In the Middle East, it is common belief among American soldiers stationed there that Solifugae will feed on living human flesh. Earthquakes have also been known to be caused by the removal of natural gas from subsurface deposits, for instance in the northern Netherlands.

Members of this order of Arachnidae have no venom and do not spin webs. Such earthquakes occur because the strength of the Earth's crust can be modified by fluid pressure. They are not especially large, the biggest having a legspan of perhaps 5 inches, and although they are fast on land compared to other invertebrates, the fastest can run perhaps 10 miles per hour, a common running speed for many humans. at certain geothermal power plants and at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal). Solifugae are the subject of many myths and exaggerations about their size, speed, behavior, appetite, and lethality. A rare few earthquakes have been associated with the build-up of large masses of water behind dams, such as the Kariba Dam in Zambia, Africa, and with the injection or extraction of fluids into the Earth's crust (e.g. The absence of shade sends them away. Some earthquakes are also caused by the movement of magma in volcanoes, and such quakes can be an early warning of volcanic eruptions.

In reality, they were merely moving toward the newly available shade provided by the soldiers' presence. Deep focus earthquakes, at depths of 100's km, are possibly generated as subducted lithospheric material catastrophically undergoes a phase transition since at the pressures and temperatures present at such depth elastic strain cannot be supported. It is this behavior which led coalition soldiers in the 2003 invasion of Iraq to think these arachnids were attacking them. Eventually when enough stress accumulates, the plates move, causing an earthquake. As indicated by their name, Solifugae are mostly nocturnal, and seek shade during the day. Where these plates meet stress accumulates. Reproduction can involve direct or indirect sperm transfer; when indirect, the male emits a spermatophore on the ground and then inserts it with his chelicerae in the female's genital pore. The Earth is made up of tectonic plates driven by the heat in the Earth's mantle and core.

The prey is then liquified and the liquid ingested through the pharynx. Most earthquakes are powered by the release of the elastic strain that accumulate over time, typically, at the boundaries of the plates that make up the Earth's lithosphere via a process called Elastic-rebound theory. Prey is located with the pedipalps and killed and cut into pieces by the chelicerae. For example it has been calculated that the average recurrence for the United Kingdom can be described as follows:. Solifugae are carnivorous or omnivorous, with most species feeding on termites, darkling beetles, and other small arthropods. Larger earthquakes occur less frequently than smaller earthquakes, the relationship being exponential, ie roughly ten times as many earthquakes larger than 4 occur in a particular time period than earthquakes larger than magnitude 5. Pedipalps terminate in eversible adhesive organs. As a result the moment magnitude (M_W) scale was introduced by Hiroo Kanamori, which is comparable to the other magnitude scales but will not saturate at higher values.

Solifugae also have long pedipalps, which function as sense organs similar to insects' antennae. The values of moments for different earthquakes ranges over several order of magnitude. Males in all families but Eremobatidae possess a flagellum on the basal article of the chelicera. The seismic moment is calculated from seismograms but can also by obtained from geologic estimates of the size of the fault rupture and the displacement. Each of the two chelicerae are composed of two articles forming a powerful pincer; each article bears a variable number of teeth. Seismologists now favor a measure called the seismic moment, related to the concept of moment in physics, to measure the size of a seismic source. The most distinctive feature of solifugae is their large chelicerae. They are still useful however as they can be rapidly calculated, there are catalogues of them dating back many years and are they are familiar to the public.

Most solifugae live in tropical or semitropical regions where they inhabit warm and arid habitats, but some species have been known to live in grassland or forest habitats. However as each is also based on the measurement of one part of the seismogram they do not measure the overall power of the source and can suffer from saturation at higher magnitude values (larger events fail to produce higher magnitude values).These scales are also empirical and as such there is no physical meaning to the values. The order includes 900 known species, whose common names include "windscorpion", "sun spider", and "camel spider". Each of these is scaled to gives values similar to the values given by the Richter scale. The order is also known by the names Solpugida, Solifugae, Solpugides, Solpugae, Galeodea, and Mycetophorae. Other more recent Magnitude measurements include: body wave magnitude (m_b), surface wave magnitude (M_s) and duration magnitude (M_D). A Solifugid (plural form Solifugae) is an arachnid belonging to the order Solifugae, latin for They flee from the sun. It is obtained by measuring the maximum amplitude of a recording on a Wood-Anderson torsion seismometer (or one calibrated to it) at a distance of 600km from the earthquake.

Solpugidae. This is known as the “Richter scale”, “Richter Magnitude” or “Local Magnitude” (M_L). Rhagodidae. Richter devised a simple numerical scale (which he called the magnitude) to describe the relative sizes of earthquakes in Southern California. Mummuciidae. In the 1930s, a California seismologist named Charles F. Melanoblossidae. The first attempt to qualitatively define one value to describe the size of earthquakes was the magnitude scale (the name being taking from similar formed scales used on the brightness of stars).

Karschiidae. If you feel an earthquake in the US you can report the effects to the USGS. Karschiidae. For some tasks related to engineering and local planning it is still useful for the very same reasons and thus still collected. Hexisopodidae. The problem with these scales is the measurement is subjective, often based on the worst damage in an area and influenced by local effects like site conditions that make it a poor measure for the relative size of different events in different places. Gylippidae. No structural damage.

Galeodidae. Damage is slight in poorly built buildings. Eremobatidae. Trees and bushes shake. Daesiidae. Plaster in walls might crack. Ceromidae. Furniture moves.

Ammotrechidae. Pictures fall off walls. Objects fall from shelves. People have trouble walking. Everyone feels movement.

The value 6 (normally denoted "VI") in the MM scale for example is:. These assign a numeric value (different for each scale) to a location based on the size of the shaking experienced there. In the United States the Mercalli (or Modified Mercalli, MM) scale is commonly used, while Japan (shindo) and the EU (European Macroseismic Scale) each have their own scales. The first method of quantifying earthquakes was intensity scales.

Earthquakes that occur below sea level and have large vertical displacements can give rise to tsunamis, either as a direct result of the deformation of the sea bed due to the earthquake or as a result of submarine landslips or "slides" directly or indirectly triggered by it. Just as a large loudspeaker can produce a greater volume of sound than a smaller one, large faults are capable of higher magnitude earthquakes than smaller faults are. The total size of the fault that slips, the rupture zone, can be as large as 1000 km, for the biggest earthquakes. The location on the surface directly above the hypocenter is known as the "epicenter".

That point is called its "focus" or "hypocenter" and usually proves to be the point at which the fault slip was initiated. Using such ground motion records from around the world it is possible to identify a point from which the earthquake's seismic waves appear to originate. The Rayleigh waves from the Sumatra-Andaman Earthquake of 2004 caused ground motion of over 1 cm even at the seismometers that were located far from it, although this displacement was abnormally large. Ground motions caused by very distant earthquakes are called teleseisms.

The power of an earthquake is distributed over a significant area, but in the case of large earthquakes, it can spread over the entire planet. While almost all earthquakes have aftershocks, foreshocks are far less common occurring in only about 10% of events. Most large earthquakes are accompanied by other, smaller ones, that can occur either before or after the principal quake — these are known as foreshocks or aftershocks, respectively. S-waves (secondary or shear waves) and the two types of surfaces waves (Love waves and Rayleigh waves) are responsible for the shaking hazard.

There are four types of seismic waves that are all generated simultaneously and can be felt on the ground. In a particular earthquake, any of these agents of damage can dominate, and historically each has caused major damage and great loss of life, but for most of the earthquakes shaking is the dominant and most widespread cause of damage. liquefaction, landslide), and fire or a release of hazardous materials. Large earthquakes can cause serious destruction and massive loss of life through a variety of agents of damage, including fault rupture, vibratory ground motion (i.e., shaking), inundation (e.g., tsunami, seiche, dam failure), various kinds of permanent ground failure (e.g.

Some deep earthquakes may be due to the transition of olivine to spinel, which is more stable in the deep mantle. At subduction zones where plates descend into the mantle, earthquakes have been recorded to a depth of 600 km, although these deep earthquakes are caused by different mechanisms than the more common shallow events. Where the crust is thicker and colder they will occur at greater depths and the opposite in areas that are hot. Most earthquakes occur in narrow regions around plate boundaries down to depths of a few tens of kilometres where the crust is rigid enough to support the elastic strain.

Large numbers of earthquakes occur on a daily basis on Earth, but the majority of them are detected only by seismometers and cause no damage . . Seismic waves including some strong enough to be felt by humans can also be caused by explosions (chemical or nuclear), landslides, and collapse of old mine shafts, though these sources are not strictly earthquakes. Most earthquakes are tectonic, but they also occur in volcanic regions and as the result of a number of anthropogenic sources, such as reservoir induced seismicity, mining and the removal or injection of fluids into the crust.

Earthquakes related to plate tectonics are called tectonic earthquakes. Events located at plate boundaries are called interplate earthquakes; the less frequent events that occur in the interior of the lithospheric plates are called intraplate earthquakes (see, for example, New Madrid Seismic Zone). The highest stress (and possible weakest zones) are most often found at the boundaries of the tectonic plates and hence these locations are where the majority of earthquakes occur. Earthquakes occur where the stress resulting from the differential motion of these plates exceeds the strength of the crust.

The Earth's lithosphere is a patch work of plates in slow but constant motion (see plate tectonics). The word earthquake is also widely used to indicate the source region itself. Earthquakes typically result from the movement of faults, planar zones of deformation within the Earth's upper crust. Earthquakes result from the dynamic release of elastic strain energy that radiates seismic waves.

An earthquake is a sudden and sometimes catastrophic movement of a part of the Earth's surface. Lake Tanganyika earthquake (2005). Many more at risk from the Kashmiri winter. Killed over 79,000 people.

Kashmir earthquake (2005). Fukuoka earthquake (2005). Sumatran Earthquake (2005). Triggered a tsunami which caused nearly 300,000 deaths spanning several countries.

Epicenter off the coast of the Indonesian island Sumatra. One of the largest earthquakes ever recorded at 9.0. Indian Ocean Earthquake (2004). Chuetsu Earthquake (2004).

Not large (6.0), but the most anticipated and intensely instrumented earthquake ever recorded and likely to offer insights into predicting future earthquakes elsewhere on similar slip-strike fault structures. Parkfield, California earthquake (2004). Bam Earthquake (2003). Dudley Earthquake (2002).

Gujarat Earthquake (2001). Nisqually Earthquake (2001). Chi-Chi earthquake (1999). Düzce earthquake (1999).

İzmit earthquake (1999) Killed over 17,000 in northwestern Turkey. Killed over 6,400 people in and around Kobe, Japan. Great Hanshin earthquake (1995). Damage showed seismic resistance deficiencies in modern low-rise apartment construction.

Northridge, California earthquake (1994). Revealed necessity of accelerated seismic retrofit of road and bridge structures. Severely affecting Santa Cruz, San Francisco and Oakland in California. Loma Prieta earthquake (1989).

Killed over 25,000. Armenian earthquake (1988). Whittier Narrows earthquake (1987). 8.1 on the Richter Scale, killed over 6,500 people (though it is believed as many as 30,000 may have died, due to missing people never reappearing.).

Great Mexican Earthquake (1985). The official death toll was 255,000, but many experts believe that two or three times that number died. The most destructive earthquake of modern times. Tangshan earthquake (1976).

Caused great and unexpected destruction of freeway bridges and flyways in the San Fernando Valley, leading to the first major seismic retrofits of these types of structures, but not at a sufficient pace to avoid the next California freeway collapse in 1989. Sylmar earthquake (1971). Caused a landslide that buried the town of Yungay, Peru; killed over 40,000 people. Ancash earthquake (1970).

Good Friday Earthquake (1964) Alaskan earthquake. Biggest earthquake ever recorded, 9.5 on Moment magnitude scale. Great Chilean Earthquake (1960). Kamchatka earthquakes (1952 and 1737).

On the Japanese island of Honshu, killing over 140,000 in Tokyo and environs. Great Kanto earthquake (1923). San Francisco Earthquake (1906). Largest earthquake in the Southeast and killed 100.

Charleston earthquake (1886). Fort Tejon Earthquake (1857). New Madrid Earthquake (1811). Lisbon earthquake (1755).

Kamchatka earthquakes (1737 and 1952). Cascadia Earthquake (1700). Deadliest known earthquake in history, estimated to have killed 830,000 in China. Shaanxi Earthquake (1556).

San Andreas Fault. New Madrid Fault Zone. North Anatolian Fault Zone. Hayward Fault Zone.

Calaveras Fault. Alpine Fault. Earthquake prediction. Seismic retrofit.

Household seismic safety. Emergency preparedness. an earthquake of 5.6 or larger every 100 years. an earthquake of 4.7 or larger every 10 years.

an earthquake of 3.7 or larger every 1 year.