Earthquake

[sms001]

Probably the most interesting aspect of this is that earthquake NEWS now propagates more quickly than the earthquake itself. The write up I saw was about the Cumbria earthquake late last year, but the gist is that people experience the tremors, FB or Twitter, etc. about it, and the information moves ahead of the seismic waves themselves. Be nice if we could USE this info...

[Jack T. Chance]

I was sitting at work in Montgomery County Maryland, and this is literally all I experienced at my store....

I heard and felt what SEEMED to be somebody with heavy footsteps RUNNING across the roof of the store. It was only when I ran outside, looking up at the roof to see if someone was up there stealing copper and/or other metals off of the A/C units, that I was told by my neighbors that we'd just had an earthquake.

That was followed by 4-5 hours, MINIMUM, of all the Sheeple™ making so many phone calls and sending so many text messages, that T-Mobile's network was USELESS to me. I couldn't make or receive phone calls, or send or receive text messages, for HOURS. The circuits were all jammed, and all due to a relatively minor quake, in terms of the damage done.

[BookstoreEscapee]

I sent my parents an IM that said "Did I just feel an earthquake?"

Then I logged into Chat right afterwards and Pedersen said something like "Did you just feel an earthquake or am I imagining things?" (I'm in central New Jersey and he's about an hour and a half northwest of me).

Then I turned on the TV and the news was talking about feeling it in NYC, and I sent my parents another message that said "I just felt an earthquake!"

At first I couldn't figure out what it was; the usual cause of things shaking are the people upstairs but we didn't hear anything up there.

That was my first thought here (either downstairs or behind us), too, then I realized there was no noise that would explain my floor and bookshelves shaking (the only noise I heard was something rattling on the bookcase). I took the day off so I was in my living room. I had been about to get in the shower; glad I waited.

I'm in Charleston, WV, and felt it slightly. My officer manager and I were having lunch and each of us thought the other was moving the table until we realized our chairs were wobbling too.

I had a dentist appointment this afternoon and he said he went out for lunch with someone and they thought the same thing.

Checked in on Facebook and a couple people at worked posted from their phones (FB is blocked at work), and friends in Philly, Hershey PA, Boston all posted about it. My brother just told me they made everyone leave the building (he's on the 9th floor in Jersey City).

[Eisa]

Since I live way the hell in Idaho, I didn't feel it. My bf in Maryland did, though.

[Seshat]

Guests at the resort seem utterly perplexed that an earthquake could happen here, some have even said "but there aren't any of those plate thingies". I know we don't have a ton of tectonic activity but how do those people think the mountains around here formed?

If there were no tectonic plate under you, you'd be swimming (or rather dying) in magma. Sheesh.

It is odd, however, because it seems the east coast doesn't have a plate boundary. http://www.platetectonics.com/book/page_2.asp

[MadMike]

I was sitting at my desk at work when it felt like the walls to my cubicle were shaking. I figured someone was kicking or shaking the other side. After about a half a minute, it stopped and I wondered if I had imagined it.

About ten minutes later, my son called me and told me there was an earthquake, and he felt it at his girlfriend's house. I was skeptical, because earthquakes are rare where I live, but then I started to wonder if that was what I had felt earlier. Then while I was still on the phone with him, the company sent out an email confirming there had been an earthquake, but assured everyone that the building was safe.

I stepped outside for a bit and found out that several of the other buildings around us had evacuated.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

It is odd, however, because it seems the east coast doesn't have a plate boundary. http://www.platetectonics.com/book/page_2.asp

The east coast is the "trailing edge" of the plate. The plate is moving towards the Pacific. The edge of the eastern side of the plate is, if I'm not mistaken, in the Atlantic Ocean somewhere. Not sure exactly where it hits. Now, why we have a patch of active volcanism over here, I don't know. But on the east coast, that plate border along the California coast is a subduction zone, so it's still hot and active.

But that's why we have fewer earthquakes, our mountains are older, and our bedrock is more solid.

Evidently, the reason such a comparatively lower level quake was felt for hundreds of miles over here is because our bedrock is like a solid, unforgiving sheet that vibrates like a piece of sheet metal when it's hit. Over on the west coast, the bedrock is pretty much shattered and brittle and when it's struck, it just breaks up. So it doesn't transmit vibration the way it does over here. I thought that was interesting, because I wondered why it was felt so far away.

[Jack T. Chance]

What a lousy night! I got home to find that the quake knocked over lots of stuff in my room (which is on the second floor of a town house.). It's an absolute mess. Nothing seems to have been broken, but some items are missing right now, lost behind or under bookshelves & things. And trying to straighten up has kicked up dust, which is playing havoc with my allergies.

I'm probably gonna have to sleep downstairs on the couch tonight.

[Kogarashi]

I'm on the CT coast, and didn't feel it, but Hubby did (though admittedly, he's on the fifth floor of the building he works in, while I was in a ground-floor apartment at the time), and so did a friend up in NH. Maybe I'm just earthquake-deaf.

The edge of the eastern side of the plate is, if I'm not mistaken, in the Atlantic Ocean somewhere. Not sure exactly where it hits.

Don't quote me on this, but I think the eastern edge of the plate is part of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Waaaaay back when, it would've butted up against Africa, but it's been spreading since then. Any other faults around here are probably smaller cracks in the plate rather than full-on fault lines like the San Andreas fault. Totally not a scientist here.

[dragon_wings]

Oh. I had a customer lecture me last night that there was no way the earthquake was a 5.8. And she was right and I was wrong cause she's from SoCal. :eyeroll:

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Right, the western edge is the "subduction" zone, ie one plate sliding under another, and the eastern edge is the "I can't remember what the opposite of subduction zone is" zone and it spreads and causes new crust to form in the gap.

As for the Doctor of Geology living in SoCal, what does she think it was and why?

[dragon_wings]

As for the Doctor of Geology living in SoCal, what does she think it was and why?

Idk. I tried reasoning with her: the earth/ground here in the east coast is different then on the west coast, therefore the earthquake is gonna travel and feel different here then it would on the west coast. She dismissed this and said that unless it was said by a seismologist then it's bullshit. I wisely held my tongue.

[ShadowBall]

I'm in PA and I didn't feel a damn thing. But geez, the news coverage about this is hilariously excessive (I mean outside Virginia and DC). Clearly we are not used to anything worse than a blizzard around here - sure, dump 18 feet of snow on us and we're perfectly fine, but if there's a tornado that touches down or an earthquake? Everybody's having a big conniption or has FEMA on hold. Meanwhile, everyone on the West Coast is probably wondering WTF is wrong with us.

This is just from what I've seen in my own state. People had fits over an EF0 tornado that touched down for about 30 seconds and didn't even hit anything or anyone. But the 60 mph winds uprooted a couple dozen trees and they weren't too mad over that. Sometimes I think tornadoes in looming clouds look at Pennsylvania's mountainous landscape and go, "Oh fuck this. I'm going to Wyoming."

[Food Lady]

I spend too much time here; I found out about the quake from this thread. I understand being freaked out; I grew up in the land of shake and bake (SoCal) and I was always afraid of quakes. We grew up afraid of the "Big One." Never happened, and now I'm in the midwest, peein' my pants when the tornado sirens go. Whenever the shaking or rumbling sound started (sometimes the shaking was first, sometimes the rumble), I would always think, "Are we having a quake?" Then I'd kind of wait a few seconds to see if it was going to be big, in case I needed to get outside. If it woke me out of a dead sleep, though, I was out the door, no waiting. You're not supposed to do that, though, lest a tree fall on you. I remember after I moved here and heard the sirens one of the first times, I got confused and got in a doorway, and then realized oops--that's for earthquakes, not for tornadoes. haha

ETA: I worked tonight and we did have the sirens going off. I guess it's related to the hurricane. I was a little freaked out, but it was mostly north of us, in Racketman's city.

[Seshat]

Yes - there is a section of your plate (the North American Plate) on the western side of Iceland. The eastern side of Iceland is part of the Eurasian Plate (if I recall correctly).

Iceland has such a concentration of geologists because it's one of the few places on land where plates are spreading. The rest of the NA/Eurasian plate spreading zone - and yes, I've forgotten the proper name too - is under the Atlantic.

What just occurred to me, and should have been obvious, is that the east coast is a kind of tectonic joint. Continental bedrock (lighter, usually thicker rock) is connected to oceanic bedrock (heavier, usually thinner rock). Basically, when North America pulled apart from Pangaea, oceanic bedrock formed and welded itself to the NA plate.

So probably what shook was the weld.

(Note: I am not a geologic scientist either. But that makes sense to me.)