Comments on: Tectonic Junction, What’s Your Function?

By: Anthony

Anthony — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 16:38:40 +0000

Earthquakes do indeed have an epicenter, and a hypocenter (the point of origin in 3 dimensions), but every large earthquake involves movement over an extended area of fault. In the case of the recent big earthquake in Chile, approximately 400 km of fault ruptured (there’s a total area, too, but I don’t know off the top of my head how deep the fault rupture in Chile extended).

The recent earthquake in Chile is in the “zone 2″ orange band just north of the “zone 6″ gray band which represents the great 1960 Chile earthquake. The 2006 Indonesian earthquake occurred in the red zone covering Sumatra, and the fault rupture was pretty much most of that red area.

By: Pablo el aviador

Pablo el aviador — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 20:48:48 +0000

It appears this map was spot-on for the Haiti earthquake in January 2010.

By: Not Dead Yet « Cartastrophe

Not Dead Yet « Cartastrophe — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 18:54:01 +0000

[...] may recall that last month I examined a map which showed seismic potential in the Pacific. A reader, Alistair, wrote to me recently to mention that he was familiar with the [...]

By: Daniel Huffman

Daniel Huffman — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 17:53:53 +0000

An addendum: it’s indeed Helvetica, or something very similar. I know you were waiting on the edge of your seat.

By: Daniel Huffman

Daniel Huffman — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 14:32:12 +0000

I was thinking it might be Helvetica, but I can’t quite tell how the bars come together on the “K,” and whether or not there’s a small foot on the “G,” due to the scan. I left the original document at work, so I’ll have a close look at it then. I have not heard, though, about Helvetica’s possible connections to geologic mapping.

By: Andy Woodruff

Andy Woodruff — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 14:13:18 +0000

Might as well keep up the habit of giving my two cents.

Regarding labels: the Oaxaca and Gulf of Alaska labels, I suspect, are not really city and water labels respectively, but rather belong to two of the successful earthquake forecasts. For that reason I accept the use of the same type. I’ll make up for that defense with another complaint, though. Those two sites are perhaps significant in the magazine article, but even so, when there are only six on the map in total, why not just label them all? In the inset, I also am willing to accept the same type for Mexico and Central America because this is not a political reference map. Those labels are indicating regions, and whether those coincide with a country is not especially important.

But sure, it might have been nice for ANY of the different kinds of features on this map to be labeled differently. Looks rather Helvetica-ish to me (not that I’m an expert or it’s easy to see). That was a typeface specifically designed for geologic maps, wasn’t it…?