Earthquake here today
Offline At 1:51pm EST
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/se082311a.html
At 2:46pm EST
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/se082311b.php#details
I felt my first earthquake. I live near DC and was born here almost 60 years ago. After it finished I called my wife and she felt it at her work as well. Someone mentioned the epicenter was near Mineral, VA where my mother lives and by the the lines were jammed up. Eventually she called me seeing I had tried to call her. I just felt my building shake but she had a lot of stuff fall off the walls and out of the cabinets. Fortunately her brother was there and is helping in the clean up.
When it first started to happen I thought someone with a heavy footstep was walking by, then I thought someone must be push a cart, then I stood up and we all were looking around watching the lights overhead shake. Then all the chatter began.
My first feeling was how cool. I understand what is going on. I leave on the blue ridge mountains so I know plates are pushing together there. I felt I was experiencing science in motion if you will. It wasn't until I checked that my wife, kids, grandkid and mother were OK that it hit I never thought of a imaginary god causing it to punish anyone. We know where they can happen and there ain't a god with a grudge out there trying to punish anyone.
Hurrah for science that gave me a real explanation for what goes on in life.
Religion Kills !!!
Numbers 31:17-18 - Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.
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Yeah, I live in Philly and when it started to shake, first I thought Wow is that guy loud (next door), and then it really shock my Galaleo thermometer and my Dog started to Bark, and all of my neighbors where out in the street telling their kids 'not to go back into the house' it was a very scary time for my Dogs, but I did think that maybe it would all be better if we all go out to the back-yard anyway,so I stayed out in the yard for about 20 minutes.
Signature ? How ?
Saw the report - 5.8 - not bad.
Yuma, AZ where I grew up is near the tail end of the San Andreas, so I'm pretty used to them. Don't excited until the chandelier starts swaying. The earthquakes in California are near the surface, so you get a lot of jerky movement.
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsus/Quakes/se082311a.php
Lots of info on that site.
This is a good website for what to do during said earthquake -
http://www.katu.com/news/local/128273673.html
I would freak if a crevasse opened in my front yard - but given the geology where I live now, that would be so unusual we could probably start quoting "2012".
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.
CJ,
It is neat that I could say I have felt one, but I wouldn't want to live in your area. Feeling them on a regular basis wouldn't be too something I would care to do.
Religion Kills !!!
Numbers 31:17-18 - Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.
http://jesus-needs-money.blogspot.com/
This is a cool animation on the USGS website
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsanim/
click start animation.
Earthquakes are just continuous and are happening all the time. So much for that bible text that says the earth doesn't move. It moves in every way imaginable.
** edit **
I didn't realize Alaska is constantly having earth quakes. Must be on the same fault as Japan.
Religion Kills !!!
Numbers 31:17-18 - Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.
http://jesus-needs-money.blogspot.com/
Yes, they are all on what is sometimes called the "Ring of Fire". Actually, why there are earthquakes varies depending on the local plate techtonics. California, for instance. There are two plates, the one in the Pacific is slipping northwards along the North America plate. It is pulling away from the North America plate near Yuma. They is slipping next to each other in the middle of California where you get a lot of very small tremors. And up in Northern CA, they are switching to a subduction zone where the Pacific plate is sliding under the North America Plate. By the time you are up in Washington state, the most likely kind of earthquake is a deep subduction zone one and it feels totally different than the ones in Yuma.
So the earthquakes are for different reasons along the coast, and they are at different depths, and they happen at different intervals. The plates are more likely to stick and then have a big jerk in Northern CA, for example, and are more destructive. While Central CA has almost continuous movements and much less destruction.
Darn, I can not remember the name of the book I read that has a very good description of how the various plate movements cause earthquakes and volcanoes. And why earthquakes are not unheard of but are infrequent in the middle of the North America plate.
Now, I'll have to get up at 2am when I remember and post it. Like anyone will care.
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.
Probably the third or fourth quake I've felt. Definitely the biggest/loudest. I'd first thought there must be a garbage truck picking up behind my place, but then the day and time came to mind, and I ruled it out figuring maybe construction somewhere. Later browsing news I saw quake and lol'd. Sure does travel far on this coast. Back when I was in B.C. the whole Cali seaboard could've had a 10 & I'd never feel a thing.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
I care
and if you find it please post.
Isn't it where mountains are and splits that we see the affects of plate teutonics?
The west has mountains and so does the east. But the middle of the United States is a great plain, so I would think something like that would be the reason it is relatively quiet.
Here is one video which goes into the future. I know I have seen a better one that this, but cannot find it now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYbTNFN3NBo&feature=related
Are Godwana and Pangea separate theories?
I ask because this video is entitled "A big lie - the Pangea theory"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iW5HUrEkc8&feature=related
It appears to show a different pattern. Some show all land was connected to Antarctica and this one doesn't.
Also this latter video talks about the stretching of northern India & Italy. Perhaps that is what has happen to the middle U.S.
Religion Kills !!!
Numbers 31:17-18 - Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.
http://jesus-needs-money.blogspot.com/
I've been close to two minor quakes, but not close enough or in the right situation to feel them, which mildly disappoints me.
One was in Cairo, but I was on a boat on the Red Sea at the time, but got to Cairo a few days later. Looking around the chaos which is the normal state of cities in such countries, I wondered if a minor shake would leave any obvious signs there...
The other was in California, but I had just left the area, around San Jose, a day or so before. I felt cheated, it would have been about the right size to experience 'the earth move' but not big enough to be life-threatening. Although I expect I would have been shit-scared at the time.
Here in Australia, we are well away from big faults, so quakes of any significant size are pretty rare. The 'big one' here in recent memory hit the city of Newcastle, in the state of New South Wales, 5.6 on the Richter scale, in '89. Killed 13 and injured about 160. I was far enough away from it at home in Brisbane at the time, to not feel anything.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
Another earthquake at my mother's at 8pm last night
Magnitude 4.2 @ 8pm
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsus/Quakes/se082411b.php
There is a nuclear plant nearby. A friend of my mother's was at work and felt it. The plant is ok.
She is Mineral, VA which was the epicenter, but from what news I am gathering the Culpepper which is miles away got the worst of it. Perhaps the epicenter is like the eye of a hurricane. Is that accurate?
Religion Kills !!!
Numbers 31:17-18 - Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.
http://jesus-needs-money.blogspot.com/
Most quakes in North America, other than those on faults on the west coast and elsewhere, are the result of land rebounding from being crushed down during the ice age.
Also, different terrains have different effects. Swamps and sedimentary ground don't carry the vibration as well as solid rock.
Construction practices make a big difference in damage too. The older a place is, generally, the worse it'll be affected by a moderate quake.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
An aside.
When I was talking to my mother this am she said God was really with her because of the limited damage.
I thought, if God was with her why even allow an earthquake at all. Is he too weak to do that? He can only limit bad things. Meh!
As Bob Dylan sang in his song "God on our side"
So now as I'm leavin'
I'm weary as Hell
The confusion I'm feelin'
Ain't no tongue can tell
The words fill my head
And fall to the floor
If God's on our side
He'll stop the next war.
Religion Kills !!!
Numbers 31:17-18 - Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.
http://jesus-needs-money.blogspot.com/
Major disclaimer. I have not studied geology, but have dipped a toe in with a book or two.
The plates pull apart, slip beside each other, and they push one under another. The large mountain ranges are usually where one plate is pushing up against another. The Rockies, the Himalayas. The Appalachians are comparatively old mountains but they, too, are the result of pushing together causing an uplift. Yeah, really oversimplified.
So the faults on the west coast go from pulling to slipping to pushing and are very active. The east coast is less geologically active because there aren't two plates currently pushing each other. Instead, the Atlantic ocean is spreading apart down the center and the east coast is just the western edge of that spread. The Pacific ocean is also spreading but on the eastern edge of it, it is meeting the North Atlantic plate spreading westward from the Atlantic ridge. I always envision this as similar to pushing dominoes around a table top.
The Pangea theory is that at one time, all the continents were not - they were only one big continent. I heard that Gondwana was a continent once - and the two ideas were not incompatible as Gondwana happened after Pangea. This video does not show a clear "one lump" continent which is what I think the reference to "big lie" is all about. I don't know enough to have an opinion on the veracity of this simulation.
They are going by the type of rock and the type of fossils embedded. So organisms obviously related to modern sea creatures in strata that implies sea bed probably implies the area was once ocean. And so on. It is why there are seashells in the Rockies - that upthrusted land once was on the sea bottom. So I would expect theories to be adjusted as more information becomes available. And since I'm not a geologist, I wouldn't have the latest information.
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.
Aftershocks are not unexpected. You often have aftershocks strong enough to be felt or even to be as scary as the original earthquake.
Mineral was close, but not at the exact epicenter. The amount of damage in an area depends on a lot of different things - the exact type of soil and rock at different depths, the direction and length of the ground shift, the type of building and so on.
Imagine you are building something with lumber. One board is stuck to another and you jerk on one of them and they suddenly come apart. Who gets injured and what gets broken depends on the size of the boards, type of board (smooth or fuzzy, close or open grained, springy or rigid), the direction they pull apart, the force they generate when they finally separate, what various tools and people and objects are nearby and so on.
So when an earthquake happens, even if you know which fault line released pressure and the direction and size of the force released, it is not easy to predict which areas will be the most damaged. And it may seem strange that this town further away had more damage. But like the boards stuck together, the board that flips up, spinning around, most likely does more damage some ways away from the initial point of contact.
Not really a hurricane eye.
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.
Appears science is mistaken about the earthquake
The earth will respond to the actions of men. So keep it in your pants boys
Its like cool hand luke. God doesn't like this anymore than you men, but he wants it, he gets it
Praise the Lard, we have the Jacobs to explain it for us
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rloKJU6Ajc4&
Religion Kills !!!
Numbers 31:17-18 - Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.
http://jesus-needs-money.blogspot.com/
CNN quoted one twitterer from CA, "5.8? We use that to stir our coffee". I'd hate to think what they use to mix cement.
And on a side note, Bachman "Joked" about the Hurricane and earthquake as a "sign" from god to get our economic house in order.
Maybe she doesn't believe that herself, but she certainly is pandering to a base that has plenty who do believe that shit. SICK joke no matter how you slice it.
That line of logic, for those who do believe it is sick to me. "He did it as a warning", really? So daddy uses and or allows carpet bombing through violence as a form of conflict resolution?
I felt the quake for maybe 2 seconds all the way down here in NC at the southern part of the state. My chair felt like it was being gently lifted, and a brief rattling, like I hear from my air conditioner or washing machine(neither were in use at the time).
People do not understand that geographically, while earthquakes are more strongly felt in some areas, the reality is that they can happen anywhere. It's just like the fact in our planet's history, there is not one inch of the planet that has not been at one point in time, struck by lightening.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
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