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The USGS has updated the magnitude of the March 11, 2011, Tohoku earthquake in northern Honshu, Japan, to 9.0 from the previous estimate of 8.9. Independently, Japanese seismologists have also updated their estimate of the earthquake’s magnitude to 9.0. This magnitude places the earthquake as the fourth largest in the world since 1900 and the largest in Japan since modern instrumental recordings began 130 years ago. The USGS often updates an earthquake’s magnitude following the event. Updates occur as more data become available and more time-intensive analysis is performed. There are many methods of calculating the energy release and magnitude...

Scientists say a fault-line running across Alaska could cause tsunamis of the same magnitude as the Japanese disaster of March last year. Attention has turned to the Alaskan-Aleutian subduction zone, a region where one of the earth's tectonic plate, carrying the Pacific Ocean, drops beneath the North American plate. A particular section of the fault near the Semidi Islands has not ruptured since at least 1788, and measurements on this area - which lies four to five kilometres under water - reveal the pressure is accumulating rapidly. If the Pacific Ocean plate slips, as happened in the geographically-similar Tohoku subduction...

March disaster debris may reach Hawaii next year US researchers say some of the huge amount of debris that has been drifting in the Pacific Ocean as a result of Japan's disaster in March may reach Hawaii next year. Nikolai Maximenko, senior researcher at the University of Hawaii's International Pacific Research Center, says a huge amount of debris was spotted by a Russian training ship heading for Vladivostok from Hawaii in late September. The debris was found in a wide area in the northern Pacific Ocean about 3,200 kilometers east of Japan and about 900 kilometers west of the Midway...

It was a pretty good shake in the Tokyo area. Centered up in the Tohoku region where the March 11 quake and wave occurred. I think initially it is a Japanese shindo 4 (Magnitude 7.1 has now been stated).Not as powerful as March quake, but perhaps just as long in duration. Heads up. The predictions of a tsunami are only at around 50 centimeters high (at this point at least).