Latest news with #WendyBohon
The Irish Sun
19-05-2025
- Science
- The Irish Sun
Incredible never-before-filmed moment Earth's crust RUPTURES during deadly 7.7-mag quake leaving scientists ‘gobsmacked'
THIS jaw-dropping moment is the first time ever that a rupture in the Earth's crust caused by an earthquake was caught on film. The incredible footage, captured during a 7.7 magnitude earthquake that rocked Myanmar in March, shows the ground literally sliding along two sides of a fault line. Advertisement 5 Cracks can be seen emerging in the pavement as the quake hits Credit: YouTube 5 Beyond the fence, the ground begins to slide along in a jaw-dropping moment Credit: YouTube 5 It was caught on a surveillance camera at a property in Mandalay - the country's second largest city. The clip begins with a fairly unassuming view of property's gate right as the earthquake hits. As you might expect, the footage begins to tremble as the quake strikes - with the gate shaking and cracks appearing in the concrete. But it's what happens in the right hand side of the frame that has caught the eye of scientists all over the world. Advertisement The driveway can literally be seen sliding along relative to the ground outside the premises in an absolutely staggering moment. Scientists say this is the first known moment of an actual fault line motion being caught on film. California-based earthquake geologist Wendy Bohon told CBC News: "My jaw hit the floor. "We have computer models of it. We have laboratory models of it. Advertisement Most read in Science "But all of those are far less complex than the actual natural system. "So to see it actually happening was mind-blowing." Dad leaps from one skyscraper to another to save family during Myanmar quake The clip was captured Some 3,700 people are reported to have died in the quake, according to Myanmar's ruling military junta. Advertisement The rupture is believed to have torn open the earth along the Sagaing Fault. Assistant professor at Cornell University Judith Hubbard told CBC: "I keep going back and watching it. "It's really kind of staggering to see a fault slide in real time, especially for someone like me, who has spent years studying these things, but always from more remote kinds of data, like offsets after the fact or data recorded by sensors." The clip was posted to YouTube on May 11 on a channel called 2025 Sagaing Earthquake Archive. Advertisement The account features more than 1,000 videos from the day of the devastating quake. But this clip of the earth rupturing is by far its more viewed video, with more than one million views at time of writing. One commenter posted under the video: " Good grief. The whole hill shifting. The power tower collapsing. The buildings crumbling. Amazing video. " Another wrote: " Seems crazy that with billions upon billions of cameras filming everything on this earth that we have anything being recorded for the first time still. " Advertisement Read more on the Irish Sun Hubbard added that this video offers researchers a "a really striking observation". "We don't tend to have instruments right along the fault. They are often disrupted by shaking," she said. 5 The devastating earthquake rocked Myanmar back in March Credit: Getty 5 Some 3,700 people are reported to have died in the quake Credit: AFP Advertisement
The Sun
19-05-2025
- Science
- The Sun
Incredible never-before-filmed moment Earth's crust RUPTURES during deadly 7.7-mag quake leaving scientists ‘gobsmacked'
THIS jaw-dropping moment is the first time ever that a rupture in the Earth's crust caused by an earthquake was caught on film. The incredible footage, captured during a 7.7 magnitude earthquake that rocked Myanmar in March, shows the ground literally sliding along two sides of a fault line. 5 5 It was caught on a surveillance camera at a property in Mandalay - the country's second largest city. The clip begins with a fairly unassuming view of property's gate right as the earthquake hits. As you might expect, the footage begins to tremble as the quake strikes - with the gate shaking and cracks appearing in the concrete. But it's what happens in the right hand side of the frame that has caught the eye of scientists all over the world. The driveway can literally be seen sliding along relative to the ground outside the premises in an absolutely staggering moment. Scientists say this is the first known moment of an actual fault line motion being caught on film. California-based earthquake geologist Wendy Bohon told CBC News: "My jaw hit the floor. "We have computer models of it. We have laboratory models of it. "But all of those are far less complex than the actual natural system. "So to see it actually happening was mind-blowing." Dad leaps from one skyscraper to another to save family during Myanmar quake The clip was captured during the devastating earthquake that rocked Myanmar and caused damage as far away as Bangkok. Some 3,700 people are reported to have died in the quake, according to Myanmar's ruling military junta. The rupture is believed to have torn open the earth along the Sagaing Fault. Assistant professor at Cornell University Judith Hubbard told CBC: "I keep going back and watching it. "It's really kind of staggering to see a fault slide in real time, especially for someone like me, who has spent years studying these things, but always from more remote kinds of data, like offsets after the fact or data recorded by sensors." The clip was posted to YouTube on May 11 on a channel called 2025 Sagaing Earthquake Archive. The account features more than 1,000 videos from the day of the devastating quake. But this clip of the earth rupturing is by far its more viewed video, with more than one million views at time of writing. One commenter posted under the video: "Good grief. The whole hill shifting. The power tower collapsing. The buildings crumbling. Amazing video." Another wrote: "Seems crazy that with billions upon billions of cameras filming everything on this earth that we have anything being recorded for the first time still." Hubbard added that this video offers researchers a "a really striking observation". "We don't tend to have instruments right along the fault. They are often disrupted by shaking," she said. 5 5
Daily Mail
19-05-2025
- General
- Daily Mail
Scientists are GOBSMACKED by never-before-seen footage of the Earth rupturing during an earthquake
Terrifying footage has emerged from March's Myanmar earthquake showing the ground literally sliding either side of two tectonic plates. The astonishing video clip, originally uploaded to Facebook, was captured by a surveillance camera just south of Mandalay, Myanmar's second-largest city. Initially, the clip – captured at 12:46pm local time on March 28 – looks like unremarkable security footage from a private property. But about 10 seconds in, the point-of-view begins to shake up and down, plants flap wildly and the gate starts sliding back and forth. Then, at about 14 seconds, the entire driveway starts to move forward relative to the ground beyond, like some kind of horrible fairground ride. Wendy Bohon, an earthquake geologist and science communicator in California, said her 'jaw hit the floor' when she saw the footage from along the fault line. 'We have computer models of it, we have laboratory models of it, but all of those are far less complex than the actual natural system,' she told CBS News. 'So to see it actually happening was mind-blowing.' An account called 2025 Sagaing Earthquake Archive found the video on Facebook and uploaded it to their YouTube page John Vidale, a seismologist at the University of Southern California Dornsife, said he knows of no other video showing a so-called 'ground rupture'. 'It's really kind of unsettling,' Professor Vidale told Live Science. The footage was captured by a security camera at GP Energy Myanmar's Tha Pyay Wa solar energy facility, just south of Mandalay. An account called 2025 Sagaing Earthquake Archive found the video on Facebook and uploaded it to their YouTube page. Although easily missed, the 'surface rupture' event is best viewed by keeping a close eye beyond the gate to the right of the picture. Dividing the driveway and the road beyond is the fault line – the boundary where two tectonic plates meet. When the 7.7-magnitude quake hit, the ground moved as much as 20 feet (6 metres), according to 2025 Sagaing Earthquake Archive. This is the first and currently only known instance of a fault line motion being captured on camera, the page says. What happened during the Myanmar earthquake? Myanmar sits on the boundary between the Indian and Sunda tectonic plates. Right in the heart of the country, these plates move past each other in a zone called the Sagaing Fault. Researchers have warned that part of the Sagaing Fault had been 'stuck', building up a huge reserve of energy. On March 28, that energy was released in a massive earthquake near Myanmar's population centres. The earthquake was also exceptionally shallow, meaning more energy was transferred into buildings at the surface. The video was posted to YouTube on May 11, where it received 12,000 likes and more than 1,000 comments from astonished users. One person said: 'This video is going to be a staple in geology classrooms, while another called it 'truly a groundbreaking video'. A third said: '[It's] terrifying to see the entire landscape shift, very visceral expression of the energy involved', while a fourth said: 'If you're watching this for the first time and only notice the driveway, rewatch it several times looking at different areas.' Another posted: 'There's so many amazing tiny details in this video, that 30 watches in, I'm still finding new things.' Earthquakes occur when two tectonic plates that are sliding in opposite directions stick and then slip suddenly. Myanmar sits directly on top of the Sagaing Fault – a highly active earthquake zone stretching 745 miles (1,200 km) through the heart of the country. In this region, the Indian and Sunda tectonic plates slide past each other at a speed of 1.9-inch (49mm) per year. When those plates catch and stick, they build up a vast reserve of energy which is then released in a violent 'slip-strike' earthquake, as has happened on March 28. The earthquake originated from a fault that runs the length of the country between the Indian and Sunda tectonic plates. It originated from a region called the Sagaing Fault, near Mandalay In January, geologists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences found that the middle section of the Sagaing fault had been highly 'locked' – meaning the plates had been stuck for an abnormally long time. This indicated that more energy was building up than normal and the researchers warned that the Sagaing fault would be 'prone to generating large earthquakes in the future'. The March 28 earthquake killed more than 5,300 people in Myanmar, as well as more than 100 in neighbouring Thailand and one person in Vietnam. It was the most powerful earthquake to strike Myanmar since 1912 and the second deadliest in Myanmar's modern history. The Earth is moving under our feet: Tectonic plates move through the mantle and produce Earthquakes as they scrape against each other Tectonic plates are composed of Earth's crust and the uppermost portion of the mantle. Below is the asthenosphere: the warm, viscous conveyor belt of rock on which tectonic plates ride. Earthquakes typically occur at the boundaries of tectonic plates, where one plate dips below another, thrusts another upward, or where plate edges scrape alongside each other. Earthquakes rarely occur in the middle of plates, but they can happen when ancient faults or rifts far below the surface reactivate.
Yahoo
18-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Scientists gobsmacked by never-seen footage of earth rupturing during Myanmar quake
When you watch the video below, don't get distracted by the cracking concrete or the metal gate rocking back and forth. Keep your eyes focused on the right side of the screen, where you will see an astonishing sight — one that earthquake scientists say has never been caught on camera before. The video was captured by a surveillance camera on March 28, when a violent earthquake struck the southeast Asian country of Myanmar — causing widespread damage as far away as Bangkok in neighbouring Thailand, and killing some 3,700 people, according to Myanmar's ruling military junta. The footage shows the moment the 7.7 magnitude quake caused the land on one side to thrust forward with a powerful jolt, as a rupture ripped opened the earth for 460 kilometres along the Sagaing Fault. "My jaw hit the floor," said Wendy Bohon, an earthquake geologist and science communication specialist in Sacramento, Calif., when she saw it. WATCH | Video captures land mass shifts, earth ruptures during Myanmar quake: Satellite imagery and other data had already helped scientists determine the extent of the rupture and approximately how much the earth moved. But seeing such a dramatic shift of the landscape in action is a first for scientists like Bohon, and may prove to be an invaluable tool in understanding the type of earthquake that ravaged Myanmar. "We have computer models of it. We have laboratory models of it. But all of those are far less complex than the actual natural system. So to see it actually happening was mind-blowing," she told CBC News. Why the earth shifted so powerfully "I keep going back and watching it," said geologist Judith Hubbard, an assistant professor at Cornell University's department of Earth and atmospheric sciences. "It's really kind of staggering to see a fault slide in real time, especially for someone like me, who has spent years studying these things, but always from more remote kinds of data, like offsets after the fact or data recorded by sensors," she said in an email interview. The Sagaing Fault runs some 1,400 kilometres, between the Indian and Eurasian plates, right through Myanmar and into the Andaman Sea. It's a strike-slip fault, meaning that when an earthquake happens, the land mass on one side of the fault slides past the other. Researchers with NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab used satellite and radar data to determine that the earthquake caused a horizontal displacement up to six metres in some locations along the fault. The Geospatial Information Authority of Japan made similar observations. Scientists like Hubbard say there is "compelling evidence" it was a supershear earthquake. That's when the speed of the rupture, which is generally slower-moving, travels faster than seismic waves that the earthquake produces, which can travel up to six kilometres per second. The video appeared May 11 on a YouTube channel called 2025 Sagaing Earthquake Archive, which has been curating social media videos and security camera footage since the quake struck. According to a Facebook post linked in the caption, the video was from a camera at a power facility in Tha Phay Wa. That's in the township of Thazi, some 110 kilometres south of the city of Mandalay, and close to the epicentre of the quake and its 6.7 magnitude aftershock. A Google Maps satellite view of the area shows a power facility located in this area and close to the Saigang Fault. Hubbard said that watching the video, it doesn't look like the quake was supershear at this location, because you see the seismic waves hit and the terrain shaking before the rupture occurs. But it's possible it was happening at supershear speed elsewhere along the fault. She said this video offers her and other earthquake scientists "a really striking observation." "We don't tend to have instruments right along the fault. They are often disrupted by shaking," she said. This happened right there in front of their eyes, on video, which means they don't only have to rely on analyzing and interpreting complicated recordings and data to determine what happened on the ground. WATCH | Myanmar earthquake rescue, relief efforts hindered by lack of supplies, civil war: How to tell what we're seeing is real Bohon said there's little doubt the video is real and she doesn't believe it's been altered or fabricated in any way. She said there are finer details in the background that you would have to pay close attention to, or that AI tools wouldn't know to generate — such as a bird flying away as the shaking begins about 12 seconds into the video, and power lines straining and eventually causing a transmission tower to buckle a few seconds later. "There's also another kind of more subtle thing," Bohon said. "It's called the geomorphology, the shape of the surface of the earth." Earthquakes, she explained, change the landscape and move hills and rivers. She pointed to the small hill in the background of the CCTV footage, situated along the fault, that thrusts forward. "That hill in the background, that you see move towards the camera," she said. "If you look at it, it's kind of long and linear, and then it just cuts off right about where the fault is." She said that if you can view the location using satellite imagery, you could look to see where the other half of that hill is in relation to the portion that moved forward in the quake. The observations Bohon made to verify what she was seeing in the video also told her a lot about the earthquake itself and that this kind of footage has "tremendous scientific value." She said that despite the violent shaking and and shifting of the earth, it was interesting to see that small structures were relatively unscathed considering the force of the quake. "Watching the destruction in the nearground and watching it in the background, and then even further away, was a really interesting look into how earthquakes impact things right next to the fault and at varying degrees away from the fault itself," she said. As "devastating and horrific" as earthquakes like the one in Myanmar can be, Bohon said they always present a learning opportunity that can hopefully be used to improve safety and protect lives. While this footage is a first, Bohon expects there will be more to come because of the prevalence of CCTV and other types of cameras that are capturing video around the clock and from multiple angles. WATCH | Rescue crews in Myanmar, Thailand work tirelessly to find quake survivors in rubble:
CBC
17-05-2025
- Science
- CBC
Massive earth rupture seen on camera for 1st time during Myanmar quake
Earthquake scientists are in awe of security camera footage that captured the moment the earth ruptured and jolted forward during a 7.7 magnitude earthquake in Myanmar on March 28. Earthquake geologist Wendy Bohon explains her "shock and awe" at seeing the footage and how it can help us understand the power of quakes like this.
