Under the Canopy

Episode 131: Inside Earthquakes - Science, Safety, And Canada’s Risk

Outdoor Journal Radio Podcast Network Episode 131

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 1:02:59

When the ground moves, stories surface—about how faults fail, why small quakes ripple across provinces, and how a few seconds of warning can change outcomes. We sit down with seismologist Marika from Earthquakes Canada to translate seismic science into everyday clarity and practical steps that keep people safer.

We start with the core mechanics: stress, friction, and sudden slip along faults that launch P and S waves through the crust. Marika breaks down why the old, cold, and uniform rocks of eastern Canada carry shaking so efficiently, making a magnitude 3.7 detectable from Kingston to London. She separates magnitude from intensity—one energy, many experiences—and explains why modern hazard work uses moment magnitude instead of the original, region‑specific Richter scale. Expect a clear take on logarithmic scaling, those pesky decimals, and what really dictates the shaking you feel at home.

From Cascadia’s subduction zone to frostquakes that pop on winter nights, we map natural and human‑influenced sources of shaking, including how fluid injection can induce small events by changing pore pressure on faults. Marika gives a rare look inside a seismologist’s day: monitoring nationwide stations, locating events by P and S arrivals, filtering “noise” from trains and mines, and feeding data into Canada’s seismic hazard maps. Those maps shape the National Building Code so bridges, hospitals, and homes match regional risk, whether you live in BC or along the Ottawa–Montreal corridor.

We also cover Canada’s Earthquake Early Warning system—how dense sensors catch the first P wave and push alerts before damaging S waves arrive, buying tens of seconds for trains to brake and people to drop, cover, and hold on. Want to help? Submit a “Did You Feel It?” report after you notice shaking; thousands of citizen reports sharpen intensity maps and improve future planning. If you learned something new, share this conversation with a friend, subscribe for more under‑the‑canopy science, and leave a review to help others find the show.

Welcome And Show Intros

SPEAKER_08

I'm your host, Steve NiggsWiki, and you'll find out about that and a whole lot more on the Outdoor Channel Radio Network's newest podcast, Diary Civil Legion. But this podcast will be more than that. Every week on Diary Civil Live Jones, I'm going to introduce you to a ton of great people. Share their stories of our trials, tribulations, and inspirations. Learn and have plenty of laughs along the way.

SPEAKER_06

Figure out how to catch a bass. And we both decided one day we were going to be on television doing a fishing show.

SPEAKER_05

My hands get sore a little bit when I'm reeling in all those bats in the summertime, but that's might be more efficient than it was punchy.

SPEAKER_08

You so confidently you said, hey Pat, have you ever eaten a drunk? Find Diaries of a Lodge Owner now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

Winter Trails, Coyotes, And Safety

Snow, Health Risks, And Community Notes

Meet Earthquakes Canada And Marika

SPEAKER_04

As the world gets louder and louder, the lessons of our natural world become harder and harder to hear, but they are still available to those who know where to listen. I'm Jerry Olette, and I was honored to serve as Ontario's Minister of Natural Resources. However, my journey into the woods didn't come from politics. Rather, it came from my time in the bush and a mushroom. In 2015, I was introduced to the birch-hungry fungus known as Chaga, a tree conch with centuries of medicinal applications used by indigenous peoples all over the globe. After nearly a decade of harvest, use, testimonials, and research, my skepticism has faded to obsession. And I now spend my life dedicated to improving the lives of others through natural means. But that's not what the show is about. My pursuit of the strange mushroom and my passion for the outdoors has brought me to the places and around the people that are shaped by our natural world. On Outdoor Journal Radio's Under the Canopy podcast, I'm going to take you along with me to see the places, meet the people that will help you find your outdoor passion and help you live a life close to nature and under the canopy. So join me today for another great episode, and hopefully, we can inspire a few more people to live their lives under the canopy. Well, as always, thanks to all our listeners, Canada-wide to the States, Switzerland, Ghana, all through the Caribbean, and all around the world. We really appreciate you listening to our podcast. And as normal, if you have any questions, don't be afraid to let us know. I'm getting quite a few comments. I had quite a few about some of the updates in the recent podcast, which we appreciate hearing about. And I got to tell you, this morning I was out with my chocolate lab, Anson Gunner, and it's that time of year. Now, yesterday there was, uh you could tell, but there was fresh snow this morning when we were out right at first light. There was one set of coyote tracks going through the forest. And yesterday there was pear, because they're start they should be pretty much paired up starting this month. And you gotta watch out there. I know that uh we've had some issues where I am. Actually, it was a couple of years ago where five of them come at me and Gunner. Fortunately, he's a very obedient dog, so I could see all of a sudden he was acting strange and we were getting ready to head out, and all of a sudden he was running, and I could see, oh, there's a coyote there. Well, he takes off and I tell him, stop. So he stops. The coyote comes out into the field and starts going into a crouched position towards him, and we're only, I don't know, the width of a hockey arena away from this coyote. And so I could see what's going on, but I look and there's four more sitting in the woods. So there's five of them there. And anyway, so I call him back, and he comes back, and as he's running back towards me, the coyote starts taking after him. So I happen to be where I was. There was a you know a big stick there because a lot of people use walking sticks and just it's just it's just uh Chicos from the bush that are there laying on the ground. And I grabbed that and started running towards it, and the coyote kept coming until it turned around and looked and saw the other four had taken off, so then it took off and headed back. But you gotta watch out because they're they're pairing up this time of year for breeding season and keep your eyes open. But this year, you know, it's been really strange out there because we've had so much snow, and I gotta tell you, um, I lost a good friend and uh caretaker of mine, uh, bless his soul, my chiropractor. He passed from shoveling snow. And so I had three individuals in one week, two passed, and one had a major heart attack from shoveling snow. So you gotta watch out there. I know I've got a snowblower that we've had from uh the father-in-law that's been sitting in the garage for ever since he passed, bless his soul. And it'll be coming out next year because I don't mind shoveling the driveway. It's a good sized driveway. We can fit probably six cars in it. Uh, you know, three deep or three deep and side by side, maybe eight smaller ones. But uh it's when the the plow goes by and leaves that that wind drift at the uh the end of the driveway. And if you don't get at it right away, boy, and once it crystallizes due to a solid lump and it's really hard. So next year I'll be doing the the snow thrower thing, and I knew it was there for a reason. I just couldn't figure out, and now I know why it's I'm I have it there. So watch out there and take care, because the amount of snow and the amount of shoveling that's going on, you just got to watch out and make sure that everything's just right. And I was quite shocked about uh my uh chiropractor because quite frankly, uh I go out and abuse myself, cutting, split, and hauling wood and shoveling, et cetera, et cetera. And then I go and he fixes me up. And now we'll be looking elsewhere. But, you know, a good guy be uh sorely missed. Anyways, today we've got a very interesting guest with what's happening around in in the province of Ontario, and and I see what was in BC as well recently. We have uh Marika Adams from Earthquake Canada. Welcome, Marika. How are you?

SPEAKER_03

I'm good. How are you? Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_04

Life is good, thanks. Now, whereabouts, so our international listeners know, uh, whereabouts are you located from some, say from Toronto or Ottawa?

SPEAKER_03

I actually live in Ottawa at our uh kind of national capital office uh here.

SPEAKER_04

All right, so you're right in Ottawa. Yes. Now, now you're with uh maybe you could kind of explain Earthquake Canada, um, if you could kind of give some background about the organization and and who is it uh a member of which group, et cetera, et cetera.

SPEAKER_03

Sure. So our organization, we're part of what's called the Canadian Hazards Information Service, which is a branch of Natural Resources Canada. And we're responsible for you know earthquake monitoring, earthquake hazards, and also other hazards around Canada, like nuclear response management, space weather things, and uh things like landslides and that as well. So yeah, we're kind of a our hazard group here. Uh and we have two offices, one in Ottawa, and then one also in Victoria, BC.

SPEAKER_04

Oh, very interesting. So, well, you've opened the door to a lot of other questions potentially, but now you have some expertise and tell us about yourself. Now, you're a what do they call it, a seismologist?

Seismology Journey And Training

SPEAKER_03

Yes, correct. I am a seismologist. So I study earthquakes. Um, and in particular now, I study earthquakes in Canada and kind of understanding uh where we see earthquakes in Canada and why we see them in certain regions.

SPEAKER_04

So, uh, Marinka, tell us, where do you pick up an education in seismology? I mean, who provides that?

SPEAKER_03

I came about it in a bit of a roundabout way. So I started off, uh did my undergraduate degree at McGill University in Montreal in applied mathematics. Um, I always loved math as a kid. I was one of those. And I love math because it's so great, such a wonderful tool at explaining so many different phenomena, whether it's physics, whether it's, you know, chemistry, genetics, economics, biology, you know, all these things. And so I really wanted to use math as a tool. Um, and so then I kind of wanted to find sort of an application and I kind of got into a little bit of the geophysics side and understanding, you know, uh, you know, kind of the physical phenomena of our earth, you know, like plate movement and all these things. And then I kind of specialized a little bit more in earthquakes, and then I kind of decided on a whim to do a bit of a big move to kind of one of the mechas of earthquakes. And I did my PhD um in California at the University of California in Santa Barbara in uh seismology. And so that's kind of how I uh, you know, went that route. And then after five sunny years, I made the move back to Canada and now uh I'm here. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

So whereabouts uh where were you born and where where are you from originally in Canada?

SPEAKER_03

So I was actually born in Calgary, Alberta, but then I moved to um uh Chelsea, Quebec. So a very small town just across the river from Ottawa. And uh that's where I grew up. And then uh yeah, so I spent my life there, um, my childhood and everything, and then uh moved to Montreal for universities in California, and now I'm actually back to my home, which I didn't really expect, but I'm happy to be back here.

SPEAKER_04

Oh, very good. Yeah. And you talk about being uh one of those math people. I know when I was uh, because I was a business major, uh I wrote a formula for measuring growth in a negative economy that kind of spurred off uh because in negative economies, even if you have positive growth, it comes up as a negative. But I rewrote this formula that uh shows growth in a positive form for enduring negative economies. So that was kind of interesting. And and a regular I have, which is my son Garrett, he um actually was uh um he played hockey, played junior A, um and he got uh was asked to play on a he was in an NCAA scouting tournament um that uh in Michigan, and I guess he ended up being the leading scorer during the during a tournament unbeknown to me because I thought he was playing D, but no, they moved him up to forward. And then um so they asked him to go to represent the uh the league and a team in in Vegas the very next week. So he flew to Vegas and got offers from Fresno State.

SPEAKER_10

Oh, yeah, great to play.

SPEAKER_04

Well, but it was interesting because uh you you really learn a lot, and Fresno is a D1 school, as I'm sure you would know what that means. And uh for those that don't know, the listeners that don't know what a D1 is, it's just the population of the amount of students that basically go to the school, and that's the the large number of students where you get huge numbers of students. Anyways, uh so Fresno State is a D1. They have the I would think what's their mascot, the Bulldogs, I think. And they have a um a football team, et cetera. But this was their first year having a hockey team, and you can't play NCAA until after two years of playing in the American College hockey system. So, but the problem with once you play that is there's no they're not allowed to give scholarships.

SPEAKER_03

Yes, yes. The NCAA is tricky. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, so he because it was the American College hockey system and not the NCAA, there was no scholarships involved, which meant, well, pretty much that dad would be covering the shot. But uh it didn't work out, so he didn't end up going to Fresno. But California is certainly an interesting place to get an education, is it not?

SPEAKER_03

Yes, it was. Um, I felt very lucky uh to get a scholarship to go, and um it was a beautiful place. Santa Barbara is one of those kind of magic towns that squished with the beach on one side and the mountains behind it, the Santinez Mountains. So I very much enjoyed uh my time there. And funny enough, on the day I defended my thesis, there was a small earthquake, which felt very kind of almost like a, I don't know, a sign. It was pretty funny. I couldn't believe it.

What An Earthquake Is And Why Faults Slip

SPEAKER_04

So some of the questions, Marika is how long does an earthquake usually last? Like what's the time?

SPEAKER_03

So this is a very interesting question. And to get into a bit of the duration of an earthquake, let's start with kind of what is an earthquake. Because the duration involves a couple of different ways of thinking about it. And so when we think about an earthquake, we want to talk about how an earthquake is kind of when you get this kind of sudden slip on a fault, which then releases this elastic strain energy that's been built up. So when you think about a fault, it's kind of this kind of plane of weakness in the earth's crust. And it's kind of you think about maybe you have two boards that are very rough together, and you know, you're trying to push them past each other, and they're kind of stuck, right? Because of the frictional forces holding it together. And then eventually the strength of the rocks around this kind of fault or this plane of weakness here is not strong enough to withhold kind of all these forces, kind of push, trying to push past. And then as the fault slips and it kind of breaks, and then it kind of releases this elastic strain energy. And this energy can kind of gets released as you know, heat in that kind of frictional forces along the fault, and then also as seismic waves that then radiate outwards from the source, kind of in all directions, that then come to the surface, you know, and that's how we get this kind of shaking that we feel.

SPEAKER_04

Right. So, what causes the forces that puts the friction in in the first place?

SPEAKER_03

Well, first of all, there's a lot of just kind of, I mean, you try to move two rocks past each other, that's pretty tough, right? So there's like kind of that roughness there that's kind of holding it in place, this kind of friction there, and also a lot of the overburden pressure as well, right? There's a lot of normal forces and forces all around because a lot of these faults are very deep. And so there's so much material over top and kind of holding everything kind of pushed together.

SPEAKER_04

So when you say very deep, how how do you how deep do you mean when you're talking about that?

SPEAKER_03

So this can vary greatly from where we are. So in eastern Canada, for example, we get earthquakes that occur from anywhere between, you know, two to kind of 30 kilometers deep. And then if you go to other plate boundaries, for example, on subduction zones, you can have very deep earthquakes. And you can also, we've even had uh earthquakes down to 700 kilometers deep. And that's a very particular case, uh, where, for example, you have a tectonic plate that's getting pushed underneath another one. And as rocks are not very good at kind of sharing the heat around it, as that cold plate is being pushed underneath, it can hold on to a lot of its brittle nature as it gets very deep. And then it can also have uh faults that still rupture in that subducting plate at hundreds of kilometers deep.

SPEAKER_04

So I I was in North America's deepest um heavy metals mine, which is up in Timmins, and it was like 7,500 feet deep. And down there, the temperature was so hot that it was they had cooling rooms that would be like a a trailer they put down there. And it's unbelievable because they drive grater, it's 26 kilometers of graded road down this mine, and they have graters going up and down to grade the road because there's constantly water rushing it, but and vehicles can actually pass the grater. That's how big these these are. But at 7,500 feet down below, it was like 40 degrees Celsius down there. So if you're going 30 kilometers, I can't imagine what uh how far down that would be. And is there consistency in the Earth's crust to have that kind of depth before you hit the molten core?

Depth, Heat, And Frostquakes Explained

SPEAKER_03

So the molten core, we're talking about thousands of kilometers, right? So, yes. So we're talking about kind of the different layers in the earth. Uh, you can kind of think about it how you have the earth's crust at the very top, which is um can vary between just a few tens of kilometers to about 30 or 40 so kilometers in very thick kind of cratonic and then uh regions like that. And then you have the mantle, which is also a solid layer, but this is several thousand kilometers as well, before you hit the liquid outer core and then the solid inner core. So the earthquakes happen in the crustal material because that's this kind of brittle deformation uh material. And as you get further deep, even in the mantle, it is still a solid material, but it deforms ductilely. So that means when it deforms, it kind of bends and folds. Whereas the crust, when it deforms, it kind of breaks. And that's when we get these faults that can break.

SPEAKER_04

Wow. I had no idea because I thought, you know, with the temperature that, you know, and this was in Timmins, and to me, they look like huge opportunities for basically at 40 degrees. So these cooling stages, people would go in, they would work for 15 minutes, and then they would go into these air-conditioned units, which would be like sitting in a very small trailer. Well, basically about the size of the room I'm in, which is like 10 by what do we got, 10 by 12 kind of thing. And they would cool down for another 30 minutes, and then they go back out and work for another 15. But the temperatures, they must be very, very hot the farther you go down.

SPEAKER_03

I maybe can elaborate on that. Yeah, so absolutely. So in a mine, so the very first part, so around the first 50 meters or so in a mine is heavily influenced by kind of the surface temperature. But then as you get deeper than that, you start to get influenced by kind of the internal heat of the earth. And that temperature is relatively constant throughout the year. And so when you're talking about going down, you know, you said seven 750 feet or so. What was your depth you mentioned?

SPEAKER_04

7500.

Duration, Magnitude, And Historic Quakes

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, so around that depth or so, uh, we are gonna be a relatively constant temperature, and that's influenced by just kind of the um kind of the natural temperature of the earth down at that uh depth there, the internal heat of the earth. And that is not influenced by the surface temperature, hence the reason why, you know, cold weather and stuff does not impact earthquakes, right? And yeah, so this is something also a lot of people mistake things like frostquakes for earthquakes, where frostquakes are really just kind of where you have a uh, for example, a lot of water kind of sitting in near surface soils. Uh, for example, after a heavy rain or a large snow melt, and then you get a drastic drop in temperature. So all that water in the near surface uh freezes, expands, and then starts to crack and pop. So those are just those are what technically cryo seismons or frostquakes are, and they're not dangerous or anything like that. Whereas earthquakes, they're related to the internal forces of the earth. And again, that's what those faults are moving and then releasing that built-up elastic strain energy. So very different. And of course, we know earthquakes can be very damaging and can rupture for very uh long periods of time. As back to your kind of original question, uh, where um the kind of duration of earthquakes, again, that depends very much on the magnitude uh of the earthquake. And kind of to think about that, we want to think that when we think about the length of an earthquake, we think about not necessarily how long it takes for that fault to rupture, which is a different type of duration that we as seismologists look into, but also kind of the length of time that shaking is felt. And this can vary greatly for smaller earthquakes, you know, magnitude threes, that could be just a few seconds. We're looking to the magnitude five sixes, we're looking at 10 to 30 seconds. The big Tohoku earthquake in 2011, which is magnitude nine, lasted over about three and a half minutes. And then just a wild piece of information here. The longest earthquake that ever recorded, I don't know if you remember, in 2004, there was a big Sumatra earthquake, which led to that very devastating tsunami there. The fault that ruptured was over a thousand kilometers long, and the shaking lasted between eight and ten minutes, which is just unbelievable. Imagine if you're experiencing something like that. Uh, and so again, the duration of earthquakes or how long the shaking, definitely related to the area uh of the fault, so how big the fault is that's rupturing. And that is also related to the magnitude, of course. Because to have large magnitude earthquakes, we need to rupture a very large fault area.

SPEAKER_04

So when you have the larger ones, does that the distance that they're felt? Because recently in Ontario we had one up near uh Rama Aurelio Way.

SPEAKER_10

Yep.

SPEAKER_04

And it was felt quite a distance. So is is the size of it dictate uh how far it's felt, or is it the depth that uh because uh one that would be higher up um would be felt easier longer distances than one deep down in?

SPEAKER_03

So there's a lot of different thing factors that can affect how greatly an earthquake is uh felt. So, in of course, depth is one thing. And also say, for example, um if it's very, very deep, say you know, 30 kilometers deep versus you know two or so, that can affect it as well. But one of the big things is size, of course, is a big thing. If it's a smaller earthquake, it's not gonna be felt as wide. But also it has to do a lot with the propagation of the seismic waves. So in eastern Canada, we're in this very stable cratonic material, right? So it's relatively homogeneous material, and that means it has the seismic waves have low attenuation. So attenuation is just how the seismic waves kind. Of lose energy with distance from the source. And if it has low attenuation, that means the earthquake waves travel very far without losing energy, which means they can be felt at much greater distances. So yeah. So the earthquake we had last week in Aurelius was a magnitude 3.7, which was quite large for that region. That's a very kind of low seismic uh background seismicity region. And that reason, again, is this kind of cratonic material, it's very stable, it's very kind of homogeneous. So waves can travel quite far without losing energy. And that's why we had felt reports all the way in Kingston, Kitchener, London, Hamilton, St. Catharines, of course, in Toronto, et cetera. So if you're in an area where it's very kind of more broken up, then sometimes the waves kind of lose energy as they cross different uh materials and kind of can have higher attenuation in those areas. But in eastern Canada, especially, we have very low attenuation. So the waves can travel very far without losing energy, which means that we uh can feel these events at quite distances.

Why Small Quakes Travel Far In Canada

SPEAKER_04

So maybe you, uh Marieke, you could kind of explain the Richter scale and how that is determined uh the uh the magnitude of an earthquake.

Richter Vs Moment Magnitude

SPEAKER_03

Sure. So magnitudes are very important, of course, because we need to categorize, you know, the strength of these events. And so the magnitude is basically the measure of the amount of energy released during an earthquake. So there are different magnitude scales that we use, and the kind of the classic approach is this Richter scale. And this was defined by Charles Richter in the early 1900s, and this was specifically for the California, Southern California region. And so it cannot actually be applied globally because to use to calculate, so this magnitude is based on kind of the amplitude of waves on a seismogram that is measured, and then it's corrected for distance between the instrument and the earthquake epicenter, and it has different corrections based on kind of the way that the waves travel in this region. So the Richter scale is what we call a local magnitude scale. So it's corrected, it has different corrections for different regions. And so we don't try to use that because that means you cannot compare those earthquakes to other ones in a completely different region. And so what we want to use instead is something called the moment magnitude scale. And this gives you the absolute size of the earthquake because it's measurement of the actual energy released, and it's determined from the area of the rupture itself, the amount of slip, so movement along the fault, and then some physical properties of the materials around it, like the rigidity of the rocks. And so this scale takes a bit longer to calculate and sometimes comes in a little bit after a large event. Whereas these local magnitude scales, which are calculated from the waveforms itself, are very quick, and we use those generally right away. But that's why sometimes the magnitude of an earthquake can change after a couple of days when they happen, because we have more data come in and a better estimate. So the one in Aurelia that the what was released was the Richter scale that when you're so that one actually was something called the Nutley magnitude, and then corrected to be an actual moment magnitude value. So the 3.7 there is the moment magnitude. So it's a good estimate of the actual size.

SPEAKER_04

Okay. And now one of the things was the intensity as it increases. So a 3.7, would a 4.7 be 10 times stronger than a 3.7?

Magnitude, Intensity, And Log Scales

SPEAKER_03

So in seismology, we there's a big difference between magnitude and intensity. And this is very important. So magnitude is the measure for the size of the energy release of the earthquake, and intensity is kind of the measure of the degree of shaking. And that can change very much depending on where you are, what kind of materials you're on, closeness to the source, et cetera. Where for magnitude, that is the representative value, and there's only one magnitude per earthquake, whereas intensity can change greatly around the uh event. So for your what you're so yes, exactly. So for example, if you are, you know, 10 kilometers from the source, you're gonna have a very stronger degree of shaking you're gonna feel, right? Whereas if you're a hundred kilometers from the source, you're gonna have less shaking because you know the waves have lost some energy as they got to have different intensities, but there's only one magnitude for the event.

SPEAKER_10

Right.

SPEAKER_03

And yes, so magnitude is a logarithmic scale. So that means that a magnitude six produces kind of uh vibrations with amplitude 10 times greater than that from magnitude five, and then a hundred times greater than that of a magnitude four. Yes.

SPEAKER_04

Oh, okay, yeah, because it's sometimes hard. So now, so uh say a three point, say a three point five compared to a three point seven, that would be uh difference-wise, is it's still very sick fairly significant, is it not?

SPEAKER_03

It is, yes, because it's this logarithmic scale, it is still significant. So three, like a three and a three point five is still quite a difference in shaking, uh, for sure. So again, these Mangtwo scales, yeah. So these like small decimal percents, they do make a big difference uh in uh the amount of energy that's released. Yes.

SPEAKER_04

So you mentioned these frost quakes. And are they measurable and how often do they occur? And in are there regular locations where temperatures, say, in the Arctic would be far lower on average than they would be in this area?

Where Quakes Happen And Fault Basics

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, so the frost quakes really happen when you get this um kind of big shift in temperature. And this actually happens quite a lot, for example, around the Great Lakes, you know, where we have this kind of water saturated soil around uh kind of water systems. And if we get, you know, a heavy rain or a heavy snow melt, then you have very saturated soil. So lots of water sitting there. And then, for example, overnight you get a very big drop in temperature, and then all that water freezes, it expands, and then it cracks and pops and everything. And so most of the time, frost quakes are not recorded because they're not actually, you know, releasing this kind of seismic energy that gets picked up on our seismometers, right? Most of it is just kind of this popping, kind of cracking sound. But if, for example, uh it happens very close to a seismoper and it's a particularly large amount of water that froze and broke and cracked, then it can be picked up a little bit. But they're again, they're not dangerous or anything. But up in the Arctic, when you have more of the stable cold, that doesn't really affect it, right? Because the frostbakes really come from this drastic change in temperature.

SPEAKER_04

Okay. Now, fault lines. Um do earthquakes only happen, they must only happen along fault lines, correct?

SPEAKER_03

Yes. So earthquakes occur along faults. And again, these are these kind of planes of weakness in the earth's crust. Uh, and so one thing to keep in mind faults are not plate boundaries, right? So plate boundaries are kind of the interaction, because we know the surface of the earth, so the crust here is broken up into kind of these jigsaw puzzles, right? These different tectonic plates. And most of the earthquakes do happen along plate boundaries because the interaction of these plates is so complex and so intense, right? You're moving these huge amounts of material past each other, and of course, that's going to build up a lot of these forces, and then it gets broken into, and then these faults break, and then you get these earthquakes released. But you do also have faults all over uh the crust everywhere around the world. As we just saw, we had an earthquake in Aurelia, which we know is very, very far from a plate boundary. In eastern Canada, we're in what's called an intraplate setting. So that means we're in the middle of the North American plate, but we do have old faults and planes of weakness in the Earth's crust here as well. And as we just witnessed, those can rupture and we can have earthquakes in uh areas where we maybe not expect them as well.

SPEAKER_04

So, where would the fault lines be in basically? Is it North America, is it Canada-wide? Where can they be typically found?

SPEAKER_03

So we can expect earthquakes anywhere, right? So they are able, if we have old faults that are, you know, buried from past tectonic activity, now they're buried quite deep or so, those can get reactivated by, you know, stresses that are occurring in the crust. Uh, and so we can have faults uh that can occur everywhere, as we've witnessed. They we can expect earthquakes to occur in different regions, but there are some areas, of course, where we expect more earthquakes because we have, you know, known faults. Whereas in a lot of areas, for example, in eastern Canada, we don't exactly know where all the faults are because we don't know what's happening, you know, 20 kilometers deep. We can't map those faults in that sense there.

SPEAKER_04

Okay. So things like Vancouver Island, would that be as a result of some massive earthquake at some time that separated?

West Coast Plates And Cascadia Context

SPEAKER_03

You mean did Vancouver Island? So Vancouver, so on the West Coast, we have an interaction of um, you know, different plates there, right? So this is active plate boundary that we have uh on the west coast. Um so again, we know that uh, so there's like the Pacific plate interacting with the North American plate, and we also have a smaller plate called the Wandafuca plate that's getting pushed underneath, and that's that large Cascadia subduction zone that we have on the West Coast there. And so we have different, and then we also have um, yeah, so the Pacific Plate, North America, Wandafuca, and we have these different plates interacting, and that's leading to lots of uh seismic activity uh on uh the West Coast there. So the Vancouver Islands itself, that's different kind of geological formation. That's not necessarily just from uh an earthquake that occurs.

SPEAKER_04

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02

Back in 2016, Frank and I had a vision to amass the single largest database of musky angling education material anywhere in the world.

SPEAKER_11

Our dream was to harness the knowledge of this amazing community and share it with passionate anglers just like you.

SPEAKER_02

Thus, the Ugly Pike Podcast was born and quickly grew to become one of the top fishing podcasts in North America.

SPEAKER_11

Step into the world of angling adventures and embrace the thrill of the catch with the Ugly Pike Podcast. Join us on our quest to understand what makes us different as anglers and to uncover what it takes to go after the infamous fish of 10,000 casts.

SPEAKER_02

The Ugly Pike Podcast isn't just about fishing, it's about creating a tight-knit community of passionate anglers who share the same love for the sport. Through laughter, through camaraderie, and an unwavering spirit of adventure, this podcast will bring people together. Subscribe now and never miss a moment of our angling adventures. Tight lines, everyone. Find Ugly Pike now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcasts.

SPEAKER_04

Okay, we're here in Lindsay, Ontario, with Rusty, who's up from California and visits us every year. And Rusty has been a faithful Chaga user for a long time. Rusty, maybe you can just tell us about your experience with Chaga.

Sponsor Breaks And Community Voices

SPEAKER_01

Well, I feel that it's had a significant impact on my health and well-being. Uh, I believe in what I'm doing. Uh, I think that Jerry is very knowledgeable. And if he says something I take that very seriously, uh he has spent most of his life in the healthcare field and uh and certainly knows what he's talking about. And I like to be around people like that because that's what keeps me healthy. And uh I'm 80 now, and uh uh I'm gonna try to enjoy what I what I've created with the motorcycle and one thing and another, which will require that I live for at least another 10 years to get back what I've invested in my health and wellness.

SPEAKER_04

So you're seeing a you're seeing a big benefit from it, an overall uh healthy uh environment? And when when you go back to California next month, you actually take it quite a bit with you back to California, don't you?

SPEAKER_01

Oh yes, we're gonna be there for eight months, and we don't want to run out. Uh so we take it back and we take it every day. And uh, you know, I you know I like I say it's not a problem for me.

SPEAKER_04

Right. Uh so how do you take it, uh Rusty?

SPEAKER_01

I put a a tablespoon or a teaspoon rather uh in my coffee each morning. Okay. When I brew the coffee, and I put it in as the coffee's brewing, I put that in with it. Oh, very good. And uh I put a little bit of cinnamon in with it too. Right. And uh then I I sweeten my coffee because take the bitterness, a little bit of bitterness, I use the chaga uh and uh uh maple mix. Very good. Uh that you make up for those that want to be well and stay well.

SPEAKER_04

Okay. Well, thanks very much. We appreciate you taking the time and sharing your chaga experience with you, and we'll make sure you have a safe trip back to California.

SPEAKER_01

Sure enough. All right, okay. Thank you, Jerry. Yeah. Thanks, Rusty. Thanks, sir. My pleasure.

Mountains, Old Faults, And Reactivation

SPEAKER_04

We interrupt this program to bring you a special offer from Chaga Health and Wellness. If you've listened this far and you're still wondering about this strange mushroom that I keep talking about and whether you would benefit from it or not, I may have something of interest to you. To thank you for listening to the show, I'm going to make trying Chaga that much easier by giving you a dollar off all our Chaga products at checkout. All you have to do is head over to our website, Chaga Health and Wellness.com, place a few items in the cart, and check out with the code Canopy. C-A-N-O-P-Y. If you're new to Chaga, I'd highly recommend the regular Chaga tea. This comes with 15 tea bags per package, and each bag gives you around five or six cups of tea. Hey, thanks for listening. Back to the episode. So one of the things when I was Minister of Natural Resources, uh, and I didn't know, but um, there's a lot of so we have the Oak Ridges Moraine near where I am in Oshawa, and the moraine there actually puts pressure on the ground that forces groundwater up, and so you get a lot of springs occurring as a result of the hilly area there putting pressure on the ground, forcing the groundwater to come up and causes springs. I didn't really realize that or think about that until that time. Is the do mountain and hills and all that sort of put pressure on these fault lines that can be an increase or potential increase area for possible earthquakes?

SPEAKER_03

So mountains, we're talking about large-scale mountains, right? Uh, you know, Rockies or Himalayas or Andes. So what happens there is we're looking at um we have the interaction of two uh large plates. So for example, in the, for example, along in South America, along like the Andes there, we have large plate being pushed underneath the South American plate, and that material is pushing down. You can think about sort of if you're pushing a plate underneath a large plate, that's gonna kind of cause this uprise of material behind it, right? This kind of pushing upwards because you're kind of crumpling all this material. And then, for example, in the Himalayas, we're looking at the Indian plate being pushed into the or Eurasian plate. But since those are both continental material, they don't have that great of a density difference compared to an oceanic plate is being pushed under a continental one. And so you think about you have two plate material plates being pushed together of kind of similar density. So instead of going one going under, they're both gonna go up. That's where you get this kind of pushing upwards, and you get these kind of erogenous belts that kind of grow from that. So a lot of these really, really large-scale mountains result from the uh these interaction of these plates. And in Eastern Canada, for example, Laurentians and Appalachians, these are kind of old mountains that are no longer growing because we're not at an active plate boundary, but they resulted from previous tectonic activity. And now we're kind of in more of an erosional state where they're kind of losing height as they're not growing anymore, but they're still getting eroded from different processes like weather and things like that.

SPEAKER_04

Right. But the pressure that the Appalachians put on the ground don't impact uh earthquake activity at all.

SPEAKER_03

So not so much that the mountains put pressure, but we have old faults from that old tectonic activity that from different things, from different stresses that are occurring, can then be reactive, and you can get some earthquakes in there. So we do get earthquakes along these old mountain belts as well. And a lot of that is kind of reactivation of old faults.

Fracking And Induced Seismicity

SPEAKER_04

Okay. Well, America, I get a lot of discussions and everybody and rumor and innuendo just fly about everywhere. So I need to speak to the expert you and find out some details about stuff like so one of the ones is I hear about uh people talking about fracking and the extraction of oil, removing lubricants that can cause or have more earthquakes in an area because the lubricant in the ground is no longer there. Is there any truth to any of those sorts of uh activities at all?

SPEAKER_03

So in fracking, it's actually the opposite sort of what you say. So the thing with fracking, the way we get kind of induced events in that sense, right? So fracking involves kind of this process of injecting fluids at a very high pressure into kind of these subterranean rock and borehole areas to kind of force open existing fractures so that oil and gas can then start filtering upwards so that we can extract it, right? And so this injection of these high-pressured fluids into the ground actually acts as a lubricant that can then kind of so fluid pressure changes kind of the forces around these faults, and that can actually cause these faults to slip at a uh earlier rate than maybe before to kind of increase kind of that they kind of lubricate these faults that then they do slip earlier than before instead of being kind of held together with frictional forces. Now they have this extra lubricant. So really it's this injection of this kind of liquid waste deep down that can then kind of change the pressure on the faults that can cause these kind of induced events.

SPEAKER_04

Hmm. Okay. So and some of the other questions that come up are Marika is like um the deviational shift in the earth, you know, for uh maybe um are you familiar enough with deviational shift to be able to explain what deviational shift is? Because I can go into the details about how the earth is shifting on its axis. And does that have any uh impact on earthquakes at all?

Big Quakes And Tiny Changes To Earth’s Spin

SPEAKER_03

So this is a this is a slightly tricky question. So I am not a huge expert on this, but I did do a little bit, I have done a little bit of reading into it, and there's been some interesting work done by NASA at the Jet Propulsion Lab, and where they talk about how essentially during an earthquake, especially these really massive earthquakes, I can't kind of stress enough how large these magnitudes, say nine events are, right? We're rupturing over a thousand kilometers of material, right? This is a huge amount of change in kind of the the crust there, right? And during this earthquake with these huge kind of mass distributions in the crust, this can kind of change what's called the Earth's moment of inertia. So when you're kind of changing slightly this kind of you're kind of compacting the crust in a way, then it's going to have a slight change on. So okay, we talked about angular momentum, right? So that's something again with like the detail, the shift there. So the angular momentum again is going to be conserved, right? And so that has to do if we're changing the moment of inertia by kind of changing these or compacting the crust through these do these big earthquakes, then to change to keep the angular momentum preserved, then we have to kind of change a little bit the angular velocity, right? So how much the earth is spinning. And so these are on like the scale of like microseconds. But again, earthquakes are not the only thing, of course, that can change the angular speed and rotation, which then will shorten the day by like, you know, one or so microsecond or something like that. Right? They can change from big things like atmospheric winds, ocean currents, etc. But those are generally smoother changes, whereas we know from an earthquake, it can be this abrupt change, right? And that's again. So, for example, scientists looked at, you know, I mentioned that large Sumatra earthquake in 2004, right? The magnitude nine event. And that huge amount of material, uh, essentially, I think it changed uh, you know, the length of the day by something like two and a half microseconds or so. And a way to think about it, right, is like you don't want a figure figure skater, we're coming up with the Winter Olympics here, when it brings its arms in closer, it starts spinning faster, right? Right. So if you think about a large earthquake, so on these huge amounts of material, it's kind of shifting, right? It's kind of pushing past the spaults, so it's kind of crumpling there. That's gonna result in kind of this compressional stuff, and then you're gonna get this slight change or slight rapid, like rapid change in the spin, which then will shorten the day kind of thing. So that's a little bit of what I know about it, but that's kind of what that is kind of related in that sense.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah. And just so listeners understand what deviational shift is, is if for example, if you hold a pencil straight up and down, that would be the axis of the earth. And then slowly over time it's it's twisting. So you if you turn your pencil to almost one o'clock, that's a shift in the earth's axis. So that's deviational shift. And in although there's a lot of potential reasons for that, whether it's the magnetic load found. Under the earth's crust is shifting, which is causing, and they talk about things like um polar reversals so that the earth actually flips and all those kinds of things, which could have huge impacts on that star to sort of stuff. So but uh and and I honestly didn't really realize that an earthquake changed the the spinning of the earth that much uh by uh even though it's that that small amount, but it's still measurable.

Predictability, Probabilities, And Building Codes

SPEAKER_03

Yes, so it's yes, again, so it's they're not so the earth's earthquakes are not related to kind of the magnetic field of the earth, right? Those are separate things. So magnetic field of the earth, you know, has to do with kind of stuff, these kind of uh changes in the liquid outer core with the kind of uh magnetic minerals there. But the earthquakes themselves, so again, it's this kind of change of kind of the mass distribution that will then kind of have a change on again this moment of inertia, what comes into the kind of angular velocity, which then can be with the spin and the time in that sense there. Again, I'm not a huge expert in this, but this is kind of what um happens in that sense. But again, these small changes in the spin can recur from other things as well, right? So any kind of large movement of mass will affect the Earth's rotation, whether it's you know, seasonal weather, huge changes, uh, those kinds of things, or like large earthquakes in that sense.

SPEAKER_04

So and recently there were announcements in the past month or so that the the earth was actually speeding up in its spinning. Whereas I recall several years ago, maybe a decade ago, that they were saying, well, probably I don't think it was that long ago, that they were saying that the Earth's spin was slowing down. So if the Earth's spin is increasing, is there an expectation of increased amount of earthquakes?

SPEAKER_03

No. So the way the Earth, yes, so if the spinning is faster or something like that, that's not going to affect uh the earthquake frequency or anything like that. That's not really related in that sense, yeah.

SPEAKER_04

Okay. All right. So and some of the stuff uh is the a lot of the TV shows they come out and they're projecting earthquakes and things like that. Um, is there uh better abilities for projecting where and when earthquakes may occur?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, so this is always a funny thing. And I used to teach a class at Carlton University in Ottawa on natural uh hazards, and I used to show some clips, you know, from all these really dramatic movies like San Andreas Fault, where the whole earth opens up and everything. And so this does not happen. We know that, right? We don't get these massive chasms opening up and everything. That's not what happens, that's very much a Hollywood dramatization. Um, and so we cannot predict earthquakes. So we cannot, you know, specify in advance, you know, dates and times and locations. But what we do do uh work on, which is very important, is kind of the rates of earthquakes in particular regions. And we express these in terms of probabilities, right? And so this is very important for our hazard programs, right? And this is done uh all around the world in different countries want to do this for specific hazard programs, which then involve, then inform our national building codes and stuff, is that we want to develop kind of an understanding of earthquake sources in Canada, for example, right? We want to understand where earthquakes happen. And if we have a good historical catalog of events, that gives us an idea of what types of events, what sizes of events will happen in particular regions. And that can then give us um kind of rates of or probabilistic forecasts of what we could we could expect in a certain area. And that is important to inform you know, building codes and hazard programs for those regions.

SPEAKER_04

So a lot of the building codes take into consideration the likelihood or the potential impact of quakes as quakes, is what you're saying. So for bridge construction or houses and apartment buildings or the the CN Tower for that matter, all those things are taken into consideration when the they're establishing those units?

Inside The Work Of A Seismologist

SPEAKER_03

Absolutely, yes. So we are designing more earthquake-resistant structures. And of course, uh engineers use uh, you know, our seismic hazard maps, and that goes into the National Building Code of Canada, where um the uh then the uh construction uses this building code to uh of course make these more earthquake-resistant structures, right? And so that's what part of my job, of course. You know, we monitor earthquakes, we monitor, you know, crustal deformation, we map where the earthquakes are in understanding the sources, and that informs uh the hazard maps, which then inform uh the building codes. And of course, this is to make sure that we present we can as again minimize as much as possible uh the damage from potential large uh earthquakes.

SPEAKER_04

Okay, so Merica, uh tell you you kind of elaborate a little bit on part of your job. Maybe you can kind of give a better understanding of what your job actually is. So, because a lot of people would be you know interesting to know that there's actually people working in what you're physically doing and providing build-in-code information. I had no idea that the two came together.

SPEAKER_03

Yes, of course. So across Canada and actually across the world, we have these networks of seismic stations, right? So these are these seismometers are permanently in place and they are continuously recording ground motion. So essentially, if you we have, you know, we have stations in cities, we have stations out in more remote areas, and these stations are all around the country and they are continuously recording uh this kind of ground motion. And ground motion comes from many different sources, right? So, of course, seismic waves, as they come past, they disturb the ground and we can measure uh that. And so seismograms look like those kind of wiggles, you know, where we get the arrival of different uh waves that come in. But also, seismograms also like seismometers record, you know, a lot of no what we call uh noise, right? Like if a big train goes by, that's gonna cause a lot of ground motion, right? You feel the ground shake when a big train goes by, and seismometers pick up that as well. So my job is to kind of look at all the stations that we get, understand and kind of um see where we're getting the seismic signals coming in. And then I can look at the different waves and I can pick what's called the P wave. So as the earthquake ruptures, it releases these body waves, so waves that travel throughout the earth. And the fastest moving wave, it's a compressional wave called the P wave, arrives first at a seismometer. And then after that, we get what's called a shear wave. So that's the S wave or the secondary wave, arrives afterwards. And so I find on the seismograms when these waves uh arrive, and I look then at determining uh where we can find a location of the earthquake. So that is understanding where, so latitude, longitude, and depth, and then the magnitude of these earthquakes. So then we put this into what's called our um national earthquake database, and this is our historical catalog of earthquakes in Canada. So a lot of my day-to-day work is kind of sifting through all this data, locating where earthquakes have occurred in Canada, and then understanding patterns of seismicity across the country. And we know that different regions across the country experience different rates, different sizes of events. On the West Coast, we get more frequent earthquakes than the East Coast, and they're also generally larger as well. And so we want to understand different zones in Canada of particular kind of sources of earthquakes, and then that goes into the regionalized hazard map. So why we're seeing different this and then potential uh events in that region, and then that goes into the national building code. Because, for example, in an area like Manitoba, you don't have to prepare for a magnitude nine event. But if you're on the coast of BC, you have to prepare for larger events since we have different standards for different regions.

SPEAKER_10

Hmm.

Mining Signals And Human Noise

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, I know when I was I I mentioned the uh the mine I was in in Timmins, they showed us because it was it started off as an open pit, and they had laser monitors on the pit measuring ground activity for evacuation reasons. So and as soon as they saw any indication that something was coming, that's when evacuations immediately took place in order to get the people out of the mine, even in cases of small activity. Yes, that's I guess those are Yeah, those are some of the things that a lot of people wouldn't even think about or consider, I guess.

SPEAKER_03

Yes, of course. And so when you're doing a lot of mining activity, you have to be prepared. Also, you know, they do blasting rates where they go deeper into the mine or differ or laterally or so, but you also have to be prepared for things like pillar collapses or cavity collapses and these kind of triggered events from the mining activity. And they are very much on the alert for those. And we also um uh locate those events, you know. Of course, we pick up a lot of those signals on our seismometers as well. And so we have to kind of differentiate between, you know, natural tectonic activity and then also some anthropogen anthropogenic events uh as well.

SPEAKER_04

Okay. Yeah, so I found it very interesting. I mentioned, you know, driving, going down in the mine. They had a little train inside the mine as well. It's just amazing to see the activities that take place. Yes. So so uh realistically, how worried should people be about earthquakes in Ontario?

How Worried Should Ontario Be

SPEAKER_03

Ontario is a relatively uh low background level of seismicity. So, especially in kind of a southern Great Lakes seismic zone, for example, this Aurelia event that we just had was one of the largest we've had in that region historical record. This area has a very low to moderate level of seismicity compared to even more active regions in eastern Canada. Like, for example, um the uh Western Quebec seismic zone. So that's from like the Ottawa Valley to Montreal to Temiskaming and the Laurentians and so, and Montreal and Ottawa and kind of Cornwall are in that region, and they get a higher background level of seismicity than kind of the southern Great Lakes and then western Ontario. That region is quite stable. Uh, we don't get very many large uh events, and we've only ever really located a few uh in the three, four kind of range uh in that region. Whereas you go a little bit further east, uh, as I mentioned, the Western Quebec seismic zone, we've had some larger events there. In 1944, there was a magnitude 5.6 event that located near Cornwall, and we've had some bigger ones in Tomiskaming. And then if you get into the St. Lawrence Seaway, like the Charlevois region, that's actually a fairly active uh seismic zone for Eastern Canada. And we get events there almost on a daily basis, but those are most of them are small and not felt. Whereas in southern and western Ontario, we get very few events and most of them are not felt at all. So you don't have to be too worried in Ontario. But as I mentioned, earthquakes can happen anywhere. So we always need to be a little bit aware of that fact. And everybody was last week when they got uh they felt this uh event that occurred.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, so and you have an advanced warning system of some sort that uh you've worked on or have or is available?

Earthquake Early Warning In Canada

SPEAKER_03

Yes. So in Canada now we have launched our earthquake early warning system in uh western uh Canada, so in BC, of course, because they have a much higher uh seismic hazard. And then also in the dimension, this Western Quebec, the St. Lawrence Seaway, so Ottawa, uh Montreal region. And so the earthquake early warning system is very interesting. So this again, it cannot predict earthquakes, but what it does is it has it relies on a very dense network of stations. So we have that in again, these areas of high seismic risk. And what happens is as the earthquake ruptures, it releases again first the P wave arrives. This is the fast moving first arrival, and this is a lower amplitude wave. So the dense network of stations picks up the P wave, tries to do a quick location and a magnitude estimate. And then if that magnitude estimate is above a threshold of expected shaking, it sends out alerts before the more damaging S waves arrive. And so this can give up to tens of seconds of warning to critical infrastructure. For example, it can stop trains, uh, open, you know, fire department doors, stop surgeries, things like that. And then also sends out alerts to people to make sure that they are aware that strong shaking might follow.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah. So, well, I know I um I had a uh one of the persons I golf with was uh he was an engineer on a train. Um and it takes, I'm quite surprised, it takes like some of the larger trains, like a mile for them to to slow down and stop. So it's not something that can take place quickly. But so when this advanced notification system is in place, and would we get it on our phones that uh in an area that is happening that to be aware or that sort of stuff?

SPEAKER_03

Yes, exactly. So as I mentioned, the so the system, so the kind of the the one of the key ideas behind these earthquake early warning or EEW systems are is that we can disseminate information quite quickly. And so again, once that's dense network in these areas of high seismic risk, kind of pick up first the P waves to do a quick location. And if the uh event that they're expecting is gonna be greater than a magnitude five or an intensity of four, it sends out alert via NPASS, so the National Public Alerting System. And so for the areas that will experience that high shaking. And so, for example, um, if you will get it, so if you've seen you've got an Amber alert on your phone, so it's gonna be similar to that that's gonna appear on your phone, and it will tell you to drop cover and hold on because you're gonna expect some strong shaking coming in the next few seconds. And that's what to do during an earthquake is again, don't panic. That's a big thing. Uh, don't try to run out, don't stand under a door. You want to get under something very sturdy, like a table, and hold on until the shaking has passed, and then a little bit after to make sure nothing has become unstable and fallen down or something.

SPEAKER_04

Hmm. Okay. Well, thanks very much, Marika. Very much appreciate all the information in that. Is there anything else that you can inform us on that you think the public would be interested in hearing about this? Because there's so many different things that and avenues to talk about that I think I've covered most of them, but there might be some more stuff that you think that would be interesting or people need to know.

What To Do When Shaking Starts

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, so I just again, one big thing that we find is very important for us and for our research is kind of the citizen science part of it. So if you do feel an earthquake, please go onto our website. So that's earthquakescanada.nrcan.gc.ca, or you can just Google Earthquakes Canada and fill out a did you feel it report. So this is just a way that you kind of put in your location and how you experience the event. So this is really important for us because for one, it gives us an idea of the extent of shaking of certain events. And again, for example, this Aurelia event, we got did you got over 4,000 did you feel it reports from again, Kingston, Kitchener, London, et cetera. And this gives us an idea of how widely felt these earthquakes are. And this is important for our research to understand and for our hazard, right? So if we have an event here, people in these distances are still gonna feel it. And that's important for us to know. And again, we need to know from you guys. So, again, that's the citizen science part. So I really encourage people to fill those out if you do feel an earthquake. That helps us a lot in our research. And also, you can get lots of information about being prepared for events and kind of the different events that we have here in Canada on our website as well. Uh, or you can send me uh an email and I'd be happy uh to answer questions about it because again, earthquakes, one, they're very interesting. They tell us kind of the way the seismic waves travel through the earth, gives us a way of kind of giving us an x-ray into the deeper parts of the earth that we don't get information otherwise from. Uh, and also it gives us an idea about how the public perceive earthquakes, which is important for us in our kind of outreach and our education that we can do.

Citizen Science And How To Help

SPEAKER_04

Right. So, Marika, thanks very much. So, how do people get your your email, or where do they send that email to, or where can they get more information, or how do they get in touch with you to get more details?

SPEAKER_03

So, if you go to our Earthquakes Canada website, there is a contact us uh form. You can fill that out, but there's also our general email uh that you can uh find. It's on our homepage if you go to contact. And for general seismology questions, there's an earthquake info uh email address that you can find that we have our seismologists on staff that are answering these every day. So we're happy to get questions from the public. So don't, you know, feel shy about any asking any types of questions. We're more than happy to share general information, more technical information, uh, or reassuring about kind of seismic hazards, that kind of thing. So please reach out. We're happy to talk to anybody about um these earthquakes.

SPEAKER_04

Well, thanks very much, Marika, for sharing your information and your knowledge. I found it very interesting, and I'm sure a lot of people will. And if anybody has any questions, don't be afraid to reach out to us and ask those questions so we can see what we can do and getting some answers. But now you know a little bit more, something a little bit different about what's happening out there under the canopy. And this could be way under the canopy in the crowd. Thanks very much, Marika, for being on our program.

SPEAKER_03

Thanks so much for having me. It was a pleasure.

SPEAKER_04

Okay.

SPEAKER_07

Now you might know us as the hosts of Canada's favorite fishing show, but now we're hosting a podcast. That's right. Every Thursday, Angela will be right here in your ears, bringing you a brand new episode of Outdoor Journal Radio. Hmm. Now, what are we gonna talk about for two hours every week? Well, you know there's gonna be a lot of fishing.

SPEAKER_00

I knew exactly where those fish were going to be and how to catch them, and they were easy to catch.

SPEAKER_07

Yeah, but it's not just a fishing show. We're going to be talking to people from all facets of the outdoors.

SPEAKER_05

From athletes, all the other guys would go golfing, meaning guys in church, and all the Russians would go fishing.

SPEAKER_09

Chefs, if any game isn't cooked properly, you will taste it.

SPEAKER_07

And whoever else would pick up the phone. Wherever you are, Outdoor Journal Radio seeks to answer the questions and tell the stories of all those who enjoy being outside. Find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.