[DruulEmpire]

Any may proceed to relate past and future run-ins with earthquakes here, but I might as well report this.

About one hour ago, circa 1:55 PM EST on this Tuesday the 23rd of August 2011, I got hit here in Pittsburgh by an earthquake.  Googling around, I see that it emanated from an epicenter down in Virginia with a force of 5.9 and even inspired some evacuations at the Pentagon.  By the time it got here, I would call it mild but still distinct.  I suddenly had this feeling that my entire apartment building was sitting atop some giant Jello mold which had been sent wobbling a little.  I wondered at first if someone living directly below me was doing something weird, but I quickly caught on, no, this is too big, has to be a quake.

It struck me as oddly appropriate, as I was reading rather "explosive" material at that moment, which I may even tell you about someday.

[SamV]

Yeah I noticed my CRT monitor shaking and at first I was wondering what was happening - like was it real or was I having a 70's flashback. 

Then I looked at the lamp on my desk and it's a spring loaded extension arm type and it was shaking even more.

That's when I surmised either I was perhaps experiencing earth tremors or one of the long abandoned mine tunnels about this area might have collapsed.

Anyway after about 20 or 30 seconds it seemed to subside and I went outside to see if I could see anyone about who might have felt it too, but there was no one around. I also gave my house a quick look over to see it was okay.

Since there was noting to do went back inside and figured if it was a quake there would probably be a report on the 4PM news.

And that was about the extent of it for me.

[TheZookie007]

I was on the sixth floor of a ten story building. My chair started moving and I thought I was imagining it, until I looked at my 42-inch flatscreen TV and it was vibrating back and forth. That's when I busted out of the apartment and stood under a doorway until the shaking stopped.

No joke -- I had just started playing this song when the tremor hit! Creepy!

[rtpoe]

I was at work when the cubicle walls started shaking. Felt like a big construction vehicle was trundling by, but it was shaking too much and went on too long. Other buildings in the complex were evacuated. We were in a squat 3 story building, so no one bothered with us.

And this was about 30 miles north of NYC.

I'm happy to have experienced it. There have been other minor quakes here in the Northeast, but never when I was awake or in a place where they could be felt.

[NAFOD]

I was at work BSing at the bar. (yes, we have a bar where I work).

Pictures started shaking. We thought a big plane crash, but there was no "BOOM"

[TheZookie007]

Here's the official USGS page on the earthquake. But not to worry, Michele Bachmann got it covered.

[solvegas]

Having lived on the 2nd most earthquake prone state on the North American plate, California, and presently living on the 3rd most active, Nevada, a 5.9 ain't a big deal. You people back East can talk about eartquakes when it is a respectable 7+. 

[SamV]

Michele Bachmann on 23 Aug 2011:
"Earthquakes don't scare me. Jesus speaks to me through our planet. Sometimes when I walk on the beach, I fantasize about tsunamis of blood."

"Jesus - if you're listening, whatever else you do, please, please, please for the sake of every rational person on this planet - SEE THAT THIS WOMAN NEVER GETS NEAR THE WHITE HOUSE!"

[pedonbio]

The really serious threat is the New Madrid Fault.

We in the Pacific Northwest are due for an 8.5 to 9.0 quake, based on our history. Until 1995 or so buildings (including the Space Needle) were built to withstand an 8.0 because geologists thought that was the biggest we could expect. Then a geologist from the U of Washington at Seattle spent a year in Tokyo researching the "Orphan Tsunami" of January, 1700. An "orphan" tsunami is a wave that comes in with no earthquake before it. In this case he hypothosized that the earthquake had happened at the edge of the San Juan de Fuca plate and found a lot of evidence that we had had a very large tsunami and land sinking at that time based on tree ring work.

So now our building codes require building to withstand a 9.0 and in about thirty more years most buildings will be built to withstand that, including some retrofitting. So we are getting ready. There is an Indian reservation that has petitioned congress to move, since it will be completely submerged, and most coastal cities are building large land "bumps" for refuge.

However, the New Madrid Fault is still poorly understood, though the last time it sprang was December, 1811, and it knocked over buildings in Boston and in Charleston, SC. It is due to spring again in this century and will likely damage Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City, Memphis, New Orleans, and Little Rock. Given what little is known about the fault, it is possible that it will submerge some of the Mississippi Valley. Unfortunately, none of those cities (except, I think, Chicago) have seismic building codes.

[gOOber]

 

[rtpoe]

Yep, if the New Madrid fault lets loose like it did back in the winter of 1811-1812, cities from Memphis to St. Louis will be wrecked. That series of quakes included FOUR shocks of estimated magnitude 7.0 or greater.... The Mississippi River flowed backwards, and Reelfoot Lake was formed...

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/states/events/1811-1812.php

Solvegas, you are right (as usual) in stating that a 5.8 earthquake isn't a big deal out west. But there's a big geological difference between coasts. The West is so fragmented by fault lines that quakes don't propagate very far. The East has very few fault lines.

Experiment you can do at home! Fill a sheet cake pan with Jello; let it set. Poke it at one side, and watch the jiggles spread over the entire pan. Now, take a knife and make several stabbing slices in a strip in the center. Poke it again on one uncut side, and see if the jiggles spread across the slashed zone.

So when a 5.8 quake in California can be felt from San Diego to Eureka, then we'll talk...

[solvegas]

I was just fooling around rtpoe. Having lived in Mexico City, which is mostly built on a dry lake bed, even minor quakes can be catastrophic. Soil composition is a factor which can make relatively minor quakes terrible. Mexico City has approximately 25 million people living in and around it and if a 7+ hits it, it's going to be horrible with many thousands killed. While Mexico has good building codes, the place is incredibly corrupt and a lot of shitty buildings never get retrofitted or even new ones are deathtraps. Hope the good luck holds up ..... 

[pedonbio]

Yeah, it's complicated, and there is vastly much more unknown than known. As solvegas says, local soil conditions can make a mild quake into a major disaster--Which is why so much work has been done around Seattle and San Francisco. In Seattle the Pioneer Square and SODO neighborhoods are built on fill, as are the Marina and Financial districts in San Francisco. In any significant quake the fill behaves like Jell-O.

On the other hand, so little is known about fault lines in the East that nobody can say much with certainty. The most common way to locate faults is to study results of quakes, and there are so few quakes in the East that there isn't much to study. For example, a slip-strike quake along the entire San Andreas Fault would go further than the recent Eastern quake, and a subduction quake could reach from Seattle to Ancorage.

[brakblake]

The first quake I heard about Tuesday morning was the one out in Colorado (it happened about a 4-6 hour drive north of where I live in NM). I had just gotten back to the Hotel at like 8AM after working a night job doing some cabling work. Then later in the day (aka, after 4 hours of **82** and 4 more hours of driving) when everyone was talking about the earthquake that happened, it took me by surprise because I didnt know that the Washington Monument was out in no-where Colorado....too bad it was only then that I found out about the earthquake back on the east coast. >.<

[rtpoe]

No prob, Solvegas.

Hey, want to trade earthquakes for hurricanes?