US VA Earthquake - 5.8

[Scatterbrained]

Nothing big, I'm just sitting at the computer about ten minutes ago and we had a small earthquake. Anyone know of a site where you can see live seismographic activity? I was curious but haven't seen it anywhere, I thought there were sites where you could find this stuff? The USGS site tells you there was activity registered, but I'm curious to see what it was. (nothing major, just some swinging pots in the kitchen and whatnot. . .):confused:

[tolyD]

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/08/23/quake-hits-near-washington-d-c/?hpt=hp_t2

[tolyD]

try here
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/

[Scatterbrained]

Thanks, I just found it as well, I guess I was just ahead of the internet. . . .
about 100 mile north of me.

[S.Horton]

So, there was an Earthquake here.

I felt it in Bethlehem, PA, and we had to evacuate a building.

Anyone have photos of the events unfolding in VA?

Everybody OK?

[SuzyView]

I'm okay. I'm in Woodbridge, at Panera. People ran out of the store, I was eating outside, so I was fine. Cell service was out for about 1/2 an hour, now is fine. It felt like a tremendous shaking for about 25 seconds. I heard it before I felt it.

[S.Horton]

Same here -- Sounded odd, then the building and floor moved. I am in a University library.

I noticed a few things. First, about 8 of 10 people awaited instruction to leave, whereas the others got up and moved to an exit without instruction.

Second, and sad to say, the foyer/entrance now smells like urine. I feel bad for whoever got that scared.

Now, I am supposed to fly today, so since they are grounding planes, I think my odds of getting to where I need to be are very low.

[Dooms_day]

I was 80 miles away and it was still pretty violent! Look at the damage from my office:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-o_kvaB-lGbI/TlPslzoB5VI/AAAAAAAAAgU/lBE7-OEDYWE/s1280/IMAG0257.jpg

[Dooms_day]

8 Miles from a nuclear power plant which thankfully tripped and shut off correctly!

[tolyD]

Thanks, I just found it as well, I guess I was just ahead of the internet. . . .
about 100 mile north of me.

Are you in FL?

[S.Horton]

I was 80 miles away and it was still pretty violent! Look at the damage from my office:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-o_kvaB-lGbI/TlPslzoB5VI/AAAAAAAAAgU/lBE7-OEDYWE/s1280/IMAG0257.jpg

Is that a toppled phone? Is it ok?bw!

[hairy_moth]

I am working on the 7th floor of a building in Edison NJ.. The building started to shake and sway. We are right next to the Amtrak line, so I looked out the window for a train.. there was none. We got out. It is a very unnerving feeling when the building start swaying. I grew up in Bethlehem PA and lived in PA/NJ all of my life and have never felt anything like that.

We went back into the office building after about 20 minutes, after the facilities guys verified that there were no gas leaks or structural damage.

[Scatterbrained]

Are you in FL?

Not anymore, I live in Suffolk Va now, I just haven't updated that yet. :D As the bird flies I'm about 100 miles southeast of the epicenter from todays quake.

[tolyD]

Not anymore, I live in Suffolk Va now, I just haven't updated that yet. :D As the bird flies I'm about 100 miles southeast of the epicenter from todays quake.

oh ok I thought it reached FL too.

[Dooms_day]

Is that a toppled phone? Is it ok?bw!

Speaker and yes it played music throughout the whole duration!

[S.Horton]

Whoa, good, close call there. Without music, productivity could drop.

[Maureen Souza]

Welcome to California....;) Glad everyone is okay.

5.9? Pashosh.... that's nuthin' :lol::lol:

[tonylong]

Interesting -- 5.8 is pretty moderate but it's been a while since I've been through a quake. The last one that was noticeably was centered around Seattle a number of years back. I was living here, about 190 or so miles away. I was at my work, taking a break with a friend outside a big building that was "earthquake-proof". What that means is that in a quake the building moves more than the ground does! So, we felt a bit of the movement and didn't think much about it, but then all these people came flooding out of the building because the thing had been shaking and swaying so much!

[Jon]

Streets in DC were packed as they evacuated all the buildings due to possible damage. Train service was also disrupted. Californians, bear in mind that the last time the Eastern part of the US saw anything that strong was the New Madrid earthquake in the 19th century. There are a lot of older buildings here that weren't engineered for earthquake resistance, and a lot of the DC area is built on swamp fill.

[Maureen Souza]

We learned a lot of lessons after the 1971 So. California earthquake and the Northridge quake. They were 7.3 and I think 8.1. A whole lotta shakin' going on and lots of damage. We are in a safe pocket here in Visalia so when we feel a good jolt, we always feel sorry for Southern or Northern California areas where we know it originated from.

[krb]

Welcome to California....;) Glad everyone is okay.

5.9? Pashosh.... that's nuthin' :lol::lol:
5.8 is not huge but it would certainly make teh evening news.

Funny thing is that I grew up in CA and have lived in VA almost as long, but have felt more earthquakes in VA than I ever did out there. Every time there was a quake I was in a moving car or I slept through it or whatever. When I was in high school we had a 6.1 and I didn't feel anything because I was running cross country in P.E.

Then again, we were only a couple miles from SNORT (http://www.chinalaketechnologies.org/NAVYPDF/SNORT.pdf), a supersonic rocket sled track that does a very good impersonation of a 5.0, so even if you felt a quake it was easily dismissed as just another test being conducted.

[SuzyView]

That 71 quake was really amazing. I remember another one in the 80s that was pretty bad, I think. But here in the east, the buildings are not made for anything like in CA. I'm just glad we were far enough away we didn't get damaged. But the storm coming at the end of the week, that's another story.

[va_rider]

Things were a' rockin and a' shakin here in Staunton... shook my salt and pepper off of the top of the stove... worst of all.. it woke my cats up... they walked around with their fur all puffed up for about a half hour afterwards...

[SuzyView]

A bunch of late lunch eaters were gathered in the parking lot talking. We didn't feel quite safe going inside again.

[tonylong]

Streets in DC were packed as they evacuated all the buildings due to possible damage. Train service was also disrupted. Californians, bear in mind that the last time the Eastern part of the US saw anything that strong was the New Madrid earthquake in the 19th century. There are a lot of older buildings here that weren't engineered for earthquake resistance, and a lot of the DC area is built on swamp fill.

Yeah, I've been listening to the coverage on the news, apparently this is the worst for the East Coast in 200 years. The good news is that it was "an order of magnitude" milder than the quake that hit Haiti, and several orders of magnitude than the Japan quake. Also, a nuclear power plant in Virginia that is close to the epicenter handled things well by going through a proper shutdown process.

It's been a while since anything "major" has hit the West Coast here, but every few years things get a-rockin'!

[hairy_moth]

Welcome to California....;) Glad everyone is okay.

5.9? Pashosh.... that's nuthin' :lol::lol:

We were laughing about you Californians as we were standing around outside of the building.. (Note, here in NJ, it was not 5.9.. I could feel it, the room and floor did noticeably move, but if there had been a train going by, I might have dismissed it.) But standing around laughing outside, we joked that a quake this size probably wouldn't even have caused you Californians to pause had you been on the phone.

On the other hand, if I were in a CA building (built for it) I probably would not have left the building. But our buildings are not built for earthquakes... When I realized that it was indeed a quake, I bolted.

[va_rider]

Welcome to California....;) Glad everyone is okay.

5.9? Pashosh.... that's nuthin' :lol::lol:

That's alright... we get a good laugh over here when Central / Southern VA or Texas gets an inch of snow and it's pandemonium... meanwhile, we're driving around in 10 inches of the white stuff... going on with our daily lives...

[Jon]

That's alright... we get a good laugh over here when Central / Southern VA or Texas gets an inch of snow and it's pandemonium... meanwhile, we're driving around in 10 inches of the white stuff... going on with our daily lives...Or Las Vegas McCarron Int'l Airport shuts down because the guy with a broom can't keep up with the snow :{)#

[tonylong]

So, listening to the news coverage about this, one interesting thing came to light:

The East Coast has an older, more solidified "crust" compared to the West Coast. That means that a quake on the East Coast will be sharper over a more widespread area than one of the same magnitude here on the Qest Coast, explaining why a quake centered in Central Virginia would send people scattering in New York an Washington DC.

So, because we in the West Coast have a "younger softer" crust, that would explain why we have over the years had a number of quakes that had a higher magnitude than this one and that have, at of near the epicenter caused a lot of damage and deaths, caused very little stir in areas farther away. Like I said earlier, a bit of a tremor from the quake 190 miles away that did cause damage in Seattle, caused some buildings to shake here but "on the ground" was barely noticeable.

Somewhere over 20 years ago I was living in Northern California when a quake hit in the area that caused damage and I believe a couple deaths in the area. I was driving down the highway when it happened and noticed nothing, knew nothing until I was home watching the news and saw the reports. Good old soft, mushy West Coast crust:)!

[hairy_moth]

What I read was that the West Coast crust has so many fractures that stop the transmission of the seismic wave. The integrity of the East Coast crust is more uniform and does not impede the transmission of the wave.

[tonylong]

What I read was that the West Coast crust has so many fractures that stop the transmission of the seismic wave. The integrity of the East Coast crust is more uniform and does not impede the transmission of the wave.

Well, and that too! We've had enough shakes to crack things up good!

And then there are faults here on the West Coast that haven actually shaken up in, well, "recent"/recorded history, which is a big reason why people out here are concerned about the "big one"...

[hairy_moth]

which is a big reason why people out here are concerned about the "big one"...

Isn't the West Coast about 10 years or more overdue for the 'big one?'

[tonylong]

Isn't the West Coast about 10 years or more overdue for the 'big one?'

Gosh, you know you just can't predict that stuff!

Back in the '60s, "they" predicted it for a given time and a lot of people left the state. Las Vegas was going to be the Coastal Resort and all.

I made it as far as Palm Springs but stopped there because they were having a major Rock Festival and I figured if we were going to get hit at least I would be having a good time when it happened:)!

This was around the time of Woodstock, but I never made it there either!

[JAZZ D.P.G.]

Felt this up in Gatineau Que, Ottawa Ont area.

Just a little rolling that made you question the sandwich you had for lunch, nauseating.

[Jon]

Well, a major factor in the difference between East Coast and "California" earthquakes is that the East Coast ones occur in deeply buried faults, covered by thick, relatively unfractured, rock, which help the temblors propagate better over wide areas. In the West Coast, more quakes occur in faults that extend to or near the surface. Since they can't transmit the shock to a heavier overburden, the effect isn't felt over as large an area for an equivalent magnitude.

[hairy_moth]

Gosh, you know you just can't predict that stuff!



What I remember reading, and just tried to find now, was that there is a period of about 100 years between really large earthquakes in CA, sometime there are a several large ones within a few years of each other, but then the next set of big ones comes about a hundred years later.

1700: Largest earth quake in Continental US history
1800s Several large quakes
1906: The most famous one
20??: The "big one" that is overdue


But looking at this now, I see that this prediction was not completely accurate because there were several other large events in the mid and late 1800s that throw off that 'period' calculation
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/states/10_largest_us.php

[Maureen Souza]

We had a huge freak snowstorm here in 1996... it really came down hard for 12 straight hours. They closed schoold and some work places but mostly because it was so freakish, they let everyone have a play day.... or 2 before it melted.

I was in the 1971 earthquake in So. Cal. Our 2 story house was swaying and everything was flying out of the closets and off the shelves. We were sure we were going to tip right over. Pretty scary for 0630-ish in the morning and quite a wake up call!

[Maureen Souza]

Isn't the West Coast about 10 years or more overdue for the 'big one?'
They have been saying that for at least 30 years :):) We're ready:lol:

[krb]

1700: Largest earth quake in Continental US history
1800s Several large quakes
1906: The most famous one
20??: The "big one" that is overdue

Looking at it another way, if you view the Pacific as a large rectangle, 3 of the 4 corners were hit hard (Chile, NZ, Japan) over the the past year or two. That 4th corner...

[tonylong]

What figures as a "big one" can be pretty relative -- over the past 100 years there have been several up and down the coast that have caused a significant amount of damage and deaths. But, as we've discussed, the "real" impact tends to be right around the epicenter. So, if people have been killed a couple hundred miles away from me, but it hasn't affected those in my area, well, it's not the "big one" to us...

[YankeeMom]

I hope everyone fared well. Friends of mine felt it up here in NH, but not me (with 10 kids in the house it ALWAYS feels like an earthquake here!) My son in college in VA happened to be on a bus during the quake, so didn't feel it either! He's close to Richmond, so the only way to escape his attention, I guess. :D

Anyway, stay safe and watch out for hurricanes!

[eaglssong]

Kristin,

My grandkids in Jersey said they didn't feel it. The younger one thought maybe she felt something, but she sure didn't sound sure.

Down here in Florida, we've got our fingers and toes and anything else that can be crossed, crossed. Last night it looked like we had a cat 4 going to smack right into us here in Broward County. Now, if the forecasts hold, we may have dodged a bullet. I hate this time of year!!

[S.Horton]

The biggest impact I noticed was on air travel. ABE (Lehigh Valley) was closed when I arrived, took a shuttle to Philly. In PHL, very few people, very few flights. ORD was atypically quiet. Seems many more flights and airports were impacted than the news has reported.

[tonylong]

Hmm, I saw news about a lot of delays, but no analysis of it. I can imagine airport officials being jumpy about the stableness of the ground even if there is no visible damage -- I suppose it'll be a while before we hear anything "definitive".

[Thurman]

552326

[hairy_moth]

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=552326&d=1314175838
LOL!
I heard that people have already started selling tee-shirts: "I survived the great east coast earthquake of 2011!"

[S.Horton]

552326

ROFL!!!

bw!

[roosterslayer]

552326

my friend in japan put this up on facebook ahahaha bw!

[AngryCorgi]

LOL...

I was at home about 40 miles from the epicenter yesterday. Shook the crap out of the house and scared my wife and dogs half to death. Last night around 8:00PM we felt an aftershock...much smaller, but audible vibration in the house. It was like a 4.2 from the same location. My first thoughts when I felt the shaking was "Ruh-roh...did somebody nuke DC?...man, I hit the jackpot by staying home today!"...then when I went outside and saw no mushroom clouds I was like "meh, it was just an earthquake...".

[SuzyView]

40 miles is not that far, Tom. Glad all is well. The Washington Monument's top observation area is closed indefinitely.

[AngryCorgi]

40 miles is not that far, Tom. Glad all is well. The Washington Monument's top observation area is closed indefinitely.

Thanks, Suzy. There is an ominous long rift in the front lawn that wasn't there yesterday morning. My neighbor swears its a mole, but that's one fast moving mole if it is. It passed from the base of a tree (shallow roots) and went for at least 25 feet past the base of another tree. If that was a mole, it knows how to dig THROUGH roots and at amazing speed. ;)

[JimAskew]

A variation I just got in email :lol:

[Jon]

We've got a couple of wall and ceiling cracks. Washington Cathedral suffered more, losing 3 of the 4 capstones from the bell tower and a crack or two in the buttresses.

[CubsAngel]

Didn't feel a dang thing here in SW CT, but guess it was felt up in Hartford, and possibly New Haven.

I was bummed I didn't notice it! lol! I've experienced an earthquake before, when I was living in Cali, that was a little 3.1 though.

[AngryCorgi]

Had another earthquake last night. 4.5 on ye ol' richter scale. The rift in the front yard is more prominent. I expect it to open up soon and gush hot liquid magma all over my house.

[SuzyView]

Nothing felt here yesterday. I may have been asleep, though. No cracks, just pictures fell off shelves.

[AngryCorgi]

Ooohh...I think the rift in my yard is a happy li'l mole after all.

For reference, a mole:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_UhUOT-2x5ag/Rk8ityl9sSI/AAAAAAAAAIY/Nr0VIW0y-QE/s200/AustinPowers_Mole.jpg

Probably freaked out when the "Great Quake" hit and started chewing through the yard. Time to call in the professional mole-hunters!

[YankeeMom]

Geologists identified the exact location today where the tectonic plates shifted under the Washington Area and the Obama administration has decided to name it Bush's Fault. :)

Just a joke -- no political "debates" allowed as a result! :) I need something to take my mind off the fact that a hurricane is looking to make a direct hit here next.

[tonylong]

Geologists identified the exact location today where the tectonic plates shifted under the Washington Area and the Obama administration has decided to name it Bush's Fault. :)

Just a joke -- no political "debates" allowed as a result! :) I need something to take my mind off the fact that a hurricane is looking to make a direct hit here next.

Heh! I'll just say "That's pretty funny" with no followup commentary:)!

Hope you guys make it through the storm OK. I saw a chart in another thread that indicates the storm may take a few days to make it up to, say, New England, and that by then it may have died down a lot.

[SuzyView]

Our area of VA is not in the direct path, but we'll still get wind and rain.

[hairy_moth]

Unbelievable week here in NJ.. First an earthquake, now a hurricane. I feel like I'm living in Haiti !

[AngryCorgi]

Our area of VA is not in the direct path, but we'll still get wind and rain.

For me to get more than a little wind and lots of rain, that thing would have to make landfall as a category-5 hurricane.

[YankeeMom]

UGH! They are talking up to 8 inches of rain here in NH!! That's unbelievable. I think the most I've ever seen is 3-inches and this is a rainy state! Even a one-inche rainfall is a TON of rain and can cause flooding, so I can't imagine what 8 inches will do! Sheesh, in the winter that would translate to up to 8 feet of snow! And then there's the ungodly wind. NH is also a very windy state (the highest recorded winds in the WORLD took place on top of Mt. Washington), but I know that many trees will come down and I, of course, live in the middle of a forest (like most of the state.) I expect our power will go for sure. SIGH. I really, really hope it still goes out to sea . . .

[va_rider]

You people in the hurricane's path.... I wish you all the best... luckily, my part of VA shouldn't get touched... I don't think we're even supposed to get too much rain from it.....

but... just in case, crank the temperature on your fridge and freezer wayyyy down... that way, if the power goes off, you won't lose all of your food.... grab a few buckets of water to flush toilets and whatnot if you're on a well... be safe...