Comments on The Radioactive Yak: What Does a Magnitude 8.9 Earthquake Look Like?

oh sad

2011-04-04T12:53:20.988+01:00

oh sad

Do you have a similar app that works just like the...

2011-03-17T14:10:09.741Z

Do you have a similar app that works just like the one on phone online? its really a brilliant app as it keeps us inform of the newly developed earthquakes constantly.. the partial working site one covers the entire google map completely, so one can't see the cities in Japan

Understood. I've simplified the drawing of the...

2011-03-11T15:57:03.058Z

Understood. I've simplified the drawing of the circles on the mobile app (from which these screen grabs were taken) to optimize performance. As such for an earthquake of this magnitude they have significant error.

Hopefully it still gives an indication of the relative power of this quake.

I have a partially working site (http://liveearthquakes.appspot.com/) that shows a more accurate distances, but the site is flaky.

If you are trying to draw constant distance curve,...

2011-03-11T11:15:54.894Z

If you are trying to draw constant distance curve, you should use a formula to calculate constant distance over the sphere. For example you could use the Vincenty's formula using a fixed starting point and range and step through the 360 degrees around it.

The circles that you are drawing are unprojected on the Mercator map and fail to represent true distances. As it stands now, your representation shows:
Tokio - Brisbane 7125 Km
Tokio - Sri Lanka 6754 Km
Tokio - Anchorage 5580 Km