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Va Earthquake

Sonwatcher

Sonwatcher

Active Member
Apr 6, 2005
3,413
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Colorado
Experienced my first earthquake today . Sitting at some friends kitchen table everything started moving. My first thought was something was wrong with the house foundation. I told my friend the whole house is moving. Then I figured there must have been an earthquake somewhere. Sure enough. That was a weird feeling.
 

I guess what is different here is that we don't have the kind of faults here as you do so the whole east coast ends up feeling it. We sit on just 1 plate back here.
 
Felt it here in NY too. City Hall evacuated and more than a few office workers exit their buildings. By and large, not too bad though. Hope all is similarly well with those closer to the epicenter.

73, Bert

Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk
 
That same quake was felt as far away as Fredericton New Brunswick. The east coast has less fault lines and more solid rock base which causes even a small quake to feel bigger and be felt further away than most of what the west coast gets.
 
A 5.9 quake might be really big news on the East Coast. But on the West Coast, that isn't something we get really excited about. But that size will wake you up, as it should.

I got woke up about 3:30 AM one morning in the early 80's to a 6.5. Rolled my butt out of bed and landed it on the floor. The worst quake however was the 7.2 in 1989 in the Bay Area. That was a tough one - let me tell ya! There is a HUGE difference between the ground movement between a 6.5 to a 7.2; as it grows exponentially with every .1 increase. A 5.9 quake might have a ground movement of 2 ft or so; but a 7.2 will have a ground movement of some 30 ft. Just like a roller coaster - except you have no way of knowing if it is going to get bigger still. That will make one regular - trust me. That is what I remember of it - BTW.

But the New Madrid Fault in MO is the real potential hot spot in the contiguous US of A. There was an 8.4 in the early 1800's. Largest quake to date for the US - historically. That is the one fault that can do damage to the East Coast.
 
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Well those of you on the left coast can keep your earthquakes. 5.9 was enough of an earthquake for me. The epicenter was about 35 miles southwest of my QTH.
 
Out here the ground is broken up by several big faults, and small ones that kind of let things shift around a bit, so we get smaller quakes more often, but she can still rip loose.
I remember the Coalinga earthquake in 1983, I was working on the west side of the valley, it was a 6.5 and for days afterward we had aftershocks that were 2.5 or more..... hundreds of them.Then 7 months later, North-ridge was a 6.7.
You never get used to it, but it is something that comes with living out here.
The other thing is many of the more modern buildings are built with this in mind.
I doubt many buildings back east would stand up to a sustained 6.5 quake without major damage.
This big rock we live on has got cracks in it......

73
Jeff
 
Wow, a 5.9 earthquake hits the east coast and it's all over the front page of the news sites, the radio, and of course the east coast biased network news. Building evacuations, even!

Pussies :LOL:

At least you know why I always say I'll take an earthquake over a tornado any day. See...a 5.9 isn't all that bad :D
 
Moleculo said:
Wow, a 5.9 earthquake hits the east coast and it's all over the front page of the news sites, the radio, and of course the east coast biased network news. Building evacuations, even!

Pussies :LOL:

At least you know why I always say I'll take an earthquake over a tornado any day. See...a 5.9 isn't all that bad :D
Click to expand...


At least we don't panic, close businesses and schools and forget how to drive when we get three inches of snow. :love:
 

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