Note: USGS upgraded to 5.9 from the 5.8 preliminary estimate
Between Richmond and Charlottesville (h/t Corey S)
More:
| Magnitude | 5.9 |
|---|---|
| Date-Time |
|
| Location | 37.975°N, 77.969°W |
| Depth | 1 km (~0.6 mile) (poorly constrained) |
| Region | VIRGINIA |
| Distances |
|
| Location Uncertainty | horizontal +/- 10.9 km (6.8 miles); depth +/- 7.4 km (4.6 miles) |
| Parameters | NST=390, Nph=390, Dmin=57.9 km, Rmss=1.17 sec, Gp= 47°,
M-type=regional moment magnitude (Mw), Version=6 |
| Source |
|
| Event ID | usc0005ild |
If you felt it, you can report is here to USGS: Did You Feel It? – Report an earthquake
There’s an earthen dam near the epicenter, 1.7 miles away, I wonder how it fared:
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I forgot to mention, in my office a large painting in the lobby was nudged about 15 degrees askew. I think that’s the total damage. When I arrived home tonight I noticed that one notebook had fallen to my desk from its normal perch. I know that’s nothing by California or Taiwan standards, but we Virginians have little experience with shaking floors and vibrating buildings.
It’s the New Yorkers who should be most concerned. There is a splendid fault line which runs along 66th St in Manhatten. That’s fine – but I was told that the silly idiots laid the main utility lines into the city along the fault………
From Alexandria VA, about 60 miles from the epicenter. I was in the grocery store checking out when it hit. Explosion or quake. Well, the sound was a frieght train, not an explosion and the air didn’t concuss. Ok, then, quake. People were just frozen in shock and I had to start pushing people toward the doors, far out into the parking lot. Lasted about 25-30 secs.
When we all went back in, I finished checking out. On my way out, a woman said “I wonder if those storms (hurricane Irene) have anything to do with the quake.” I just stopped. “Storms? Quakes? NO.” She got defensive. “Wellll, you never know.” I said “Welllllll, yes you dooooo.”
Gah.
But you know what. Feeling the floor turn to liquid beneath your feet to the sound of a frieght train accompanied by shattering glass – extraordinary.
I felt something in Southern New Hampshire at around two o’clock. I thought I was having a dizzy spell. Maybe I was having a dizzy spell, for my best guess would be that it was after two o’clock, and not 1:51.
How much time does it take the shock waves to move from Virginia to New Hampshire?
Earthquakes don’t bother me at all. But dizzy spells? They make me pester my doctor; poor fellow.
Caleb says:
August 23, 2011 at 4:22 pm
Caleb – I’m in western New Hampshire and my wife felt it today while she was at work (at a meeting in a multistory building). For some reason, I didn’t feel it in my office (second floor office) and only found out about it on the internet…
Felt it in Meadville Pa!
felt it in Philadelphia PA 🙂
We felt it rather strongly in the Lehigh Valley (Eastern PA), much more strongly than I would have thought for a quake centered so far away.
Lasted for 20-30 seconds…
Here’s my stream of consciousness…what the heck? Truck going by? Nah..Are the cats playing?–no, they’re right here…lights are swaying; TV stand making creaking noises, mirror rocking on the wall where it’s hung. What are those bumps I’m feeling? Whoa–this is a freakin’ Earthquake! Should I go outside? Nah, seems to be calming down…maybe I should anyway? Aren’t you supposed to stand in a door jamb? Should I grab the cats and save ’em? Nah, it’s over.
Was I imagining it? Check on the internet, live seismic sites…etc.
Didn’t feel either quake in the hills northwest of Denver. Bet we don’t get much from Irene, either.
Sorry to say – entirely normal. Earthquake took place in the Central Virginia Seismic Zone (Tarr and Wheeler 2006, USGS Open File Report 1017), likely a a west-directed reactivation of the border fault of the Triassic Taylorsville Basin. The depth (6 km, 3.7 mi, 20k feet) is a little overly deep for that fault in that area – so perhaps another detachment for the graben to the west…
“Earthquakes can be a lot more exciting on the upper floors of an office tower than they are in open country or a single story wood frame building.”
I was on the 27th floor in Arlington, VA (what was the USA Today building). The building is designed to flex and it flexed a lot, maybe about 10 times as much as the strongest wind gust that I have felt in that building. There was no noise except the venetian blinds banging against the window frames. In contrast, everyone I talked in a frame structure had rumbling, shaking, vibrating (lots of noise) and more violent motion.
Maybe Eywa has finally heard us?
Eywa Has Heard Us!
“One guy came back and shouted “Why are you still here!” to which I said “It’s over,” which it was,..’
Our office building mostly cleared out and people milled around outside for an hour or two until the “experts” decided it was safe to go back. But in our meeting room we took a two minute break to guess the magnitude (we were all low) and then went back to the previous discussion.
Didn’t feel it here in Christchurch, NZ
Well.
It’s a tad embarrassing….. thinking I’m the center of the universe, that is. smile….
Wow, I said to me. I think this is an earthquake! My Little Hill! My Little House! My Own Little Earthquake! (I’m surrounded by farmland, atop a hill in the Shenandoah Valley about 50 miles from the epicenter.) The house seemed to sway, undulate for about a minute. It didn’t shake, it *flowed*, then stopped.
So.
Believing I am the center of the universe, I immediately notified USGS. smile…. My little earthquake. I wanted them to know….
(Actually, the USGS maps and they got more reports — eleven — from my area than the epicenter! )
But, all’s fine. The dishes rattled, but no crystal broken.
I’ve never felt one before. Since there’s no damage: kinda cool!
But, a question: Here’s the USGS data. Some MSM reports say the quake was a half
mile deep, others say it was 3.7 miles deep. The data seems to say both:
Depth 1 km (~0.6 mile) (poorly constrained)
Region VIRGINIA
Distances
6 km (4 miles) SSE (152°) from Louisa, VA
6 km (4 miles) SW (236°) from Mineral, VA
26 km (16 miles) SE (133°) from Gordonsville, VA
32 km (20 miles) E (79°) from Lake Monticello, VA
66 km (41 miles) NW (318°) from Richmond, VA
134 km (83 miles) SW (219°) from Washington, DC
Location Uncertainty horizontal +/- 10.9 km (6.8 miles); depth +/- 7.4 km (4.6 miles)
What’s the answer? …..Lady in Red
I already checked, and this was well outside the Chesapeake Bay impact crater, by a few crater diameters. That makes this less related to that.
Danny V. says:
August 23, 2011 at 12:33 pm
Felt it in Northern Ontario, Canada
Where? I lived in Timmins in the early 80’s. Many miles on the bus since those days.
I was on the 4th floor of a newly constructed office building In Anne Arundel county, Maryland. We–my coworkers and I–don’t think much of the construction. You can feel the floor flex as people walk past your desk! In fact the first few seconds of the quake people were confused, as the floor was shaking but no one was walking around. Then there was a more pronounced shock and many people started for the exit stairways.
About 45 minutes after the fact, we received word that the Federal government agency which this office building is part of had given permission for non-essential personnel, including contractors, to go home. I’m a contractor, so I left.
For those sneering at the over-reaction by the Federal government, people would have started leaving their offices anyway. The phone lines were completely choked; you could not get in contact with your family. People would have left to make sure their families were okay. Perhaps the Federal agency in question felt that they should simply bow to the inevitable.
I live in the Williamstown area of Gloucester County, NJ. First the cat came down out of the window and started to meow. Then there was a shaking that turned into a swaying of our one story wood frame home. The swaying was like the house was built on rollers and someone was pushing and pulling in opposite directions. Found my body lagging the swaying of the room and realized it was time to get outside. The family had already come to the same conclusion and were out the front door as I came down the hallway. When we got outside most of the neighbors were also coming out into the streets. You could see the cars shaking in the driveways. Right after I made it outside the shaking stopped and none of our cell phones worked. There were plenty of bars, so I figure it was just that everyone tried to make phone calls all at the same time.
I’d say it was very exciting, but also disconcerting. I definitely would not want to experience the size quakes that they have elsewhere. Haven’t felt any aftershocks yet. Hopefully it wasn’t a foreshock.
I was at JFK waiting for my plane that was delayed whe I thought someone was shaking the bench I was on. After awhile the rest of the people on the bench started asking what was happening. Several minutes later there was an announcement that we could barely hear saying that they were investigating the terminal. At that point many of us got scared that there might be a bomb (in part because we weren’t sure what the announcement was). A few minutes later a woman told me that it was earthquake. Then many of us went online and were amazed to find out that it was in Virgina. Then it was announced that they were closing all gate and all flights. It was about an hour later that they resumed normal operations. Although I asked Jetblue did not give us free earthquake survival beer.
Tom,
Aftershocks are almost always smaller than the initial earthquake. I live in California, and the first thought that always goes through my mind when one starts is: how bad will this one be? The duration and magnitude are totally unpredictable based on the beginning of the tremor. But as for follow-up shocks? Pf-f-f-ft. They’re always a weak sister to the main earthquake.
I was having sex at the time and thought I had rocked the world! Did I cause an earth quake? Could it have been the first attack of the aliens? This is absolutely shaking news.
Five weeks in Tokyo and six months in Oakland, CA and never felt a thing even though I was “looking” for it (especially every time I was in the Caldecott Tunnel). I’m in northern VA 50 miles north of the epicenter and when it started I first thought that the Marines were firing their howitzers down at Quantico. When the rumbling and shaking didn’t stop after 5 seconds I knew it was an earthquake. And it kept going and going and going. And getting stronger and louder. When things started falling off my bookcases I decided to get out. All together it lasted at least 30 seconds.
Many of my pictures were askew, things had fallen off my fireplace mantle, and my grill had danced to the edge of the deck. One of the more interesting things was that all of the dressers that were along a north/south wall had the drawers partially out. The others did not. Hmmmm.
All in all it was a pretty unnerving experience. And to think the Loma Prieta was 10 times worse, and the Great East Japan Earthquake was…… Wow.
I hear that Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan and Gaza look a lot worse.
Ironic, I lived for years all of roughly 15 miles from the epicenter towards Richmond, and still have that peice of land. Have to say it would have been interesting to feel the quake.
Clearly, it’s Japan’s fault (pun intended) – their 9.0 in March just stressed out our entire continent, and a little steam had to be let off – ergo first Colorado, then Virginia. That or they were being helpful and just trying to pull a few kinks out of our continent. :0)
Hotair.com had a little fun with it:
Jokes at Washington’s Expense Emerge in Aftermath of Today’s Earthquake
posted at 8:47 pm on August 23, 2011 by Howard Portnoy
Luckily, the earthquake that rattled windows and jangled nerves throughout the northeast part of the nation today did little beyond that. Some buildings in DC sustained minor damage, among them Reagan International Airport, which lost a few ceramic ceiling tiles, and National Cathedral, which experienced cracks in its masonry. None of the damage was severe enough to be costly or beyond repair.
The bruised egos of Washingtonians, and especially its political class, is another story, at least for those too thin-skinned to take some good-natured ribbing. Much of the comedic gestures were broadcast via Twitter. Here are several (h/t Washington Examiner):
@TPCarney: Krugman says it wasn’t big enough.
@comradescott: Evidently the quake occurred on a little known fault line outside of DC called ‘Bush’s Fault.’
@calebhowe: Breaking: Obama administration points out they ‘inherited’ fault lines from previous administrations.
@MaizeBlueNation: Fox News claims the Washington monument is leaning to the right, MSNBC claims it’s leaning to the left. More news at 11.
@charliespiering: I won’t stop shaking until Obama makes a speech telling me that everything is ok and that he has a plan.
@Ben_Howe: As all of DC leaves work at the same time, the United States experiences a brief economic recovery.
@daveweigel: Was all set to loot in Dupont circle, then realized all we have are taco and cupcake stores.
@BrianHughes: I wish I owned a bar in D.C. right now.
@JimPethokoukis Shot: Virginia Earthquake Chaser: Hurricane Irene
@politicoroger POLITICO had the earthquake story yesterday.
Charles Babbington of Associated Press offers a few more, minus attributions.
S&P has downgraded earthquake to a 2.0.
Rick Perry denies earthquake.
Michele Bachmann vows to bring all U.S. earthquakes down to a 2.9 magnitude.
There was just a 5.9 earthquake in Washington. Obama wanted it to be 3.4, but the Republicans wanted 5.9, so he compromised.
Not all of the barbs came from Twitter. The Wall Street Journal, noting that the quake reached Martha’s Vineyard, where President Obama was in the process of putting, wondered if “the temblor caused his ball to fall from the lip into the cup and help him win the hole, a la ‘Caddyshack.’”
Considering the kind of luck the president has been having lately, I’d be inclined to doubt it.