earth quake

B

B~C

New member
got awakend last night by the house shaking, we had a 3.8 quake with the epicenter just a few miles down the road...scared the crap out of me. I got up wondering if it was a small local quake, or, the big one off the coast we're all waiting for. I went to the USGS web site and they all ready had it logged on their quake map. It was kind of cool as it had all the quake data there just minutes after it happened.

quake info site= http://earthquake.usgs.gov/
 
Thanks, Ken, I hadn't heard. Three point eight. Yeah, them's numbers we can go back to sleep on. Let's vote to let that really big bugger continue snoozing for another thousand years. And quit hogging the covers.
 
10-4 on letting the big guy slumber for a few more centuries.

ya, I know 3.8 aint much for a seasoned CA or AK quaker but we don't get them like that much around here. Cept under Mt St Hellens, there is always 2-3 pointers going on up there but we never feel them. I woke up wondering if it was going to amplify or peeter out, if just aint natural as you say. That USGS map show a whole lot of shakin going on in AK

Man I pray the big one doesn't happen off our coast in our life time....or our kids lifetime....don't care about our kids kids lifetime ...because....well.....those kids shouldn't be foolin around and having kids :) they're to young
 
Due to being in the Peace Corps, we got to experience two "big ones" - Mexico City in 1968, when we were there for part of our training, and then in Turkey in 1969 where we were Volunteers. Very unsettling. Lots of property damage and probably some deaths in both, we were lucky. In Mexico, we watched mud puddles skitter crazily across the ground to the other side of the school yard and then back...in Turkey, hanging light fixtures swaying wildly...it you are not involved in the getting killed or maimed part, it is actually kind of amazing to watch.


B~C":aqre3ms0 said:
K

Man I pray the big one doesn't happen off our coast in our life time....
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I experienced a few in the 5.0-5.9 range while I was a post doctoral fellow at Caltech. In the late 1980's/earlt 1990's there were quite a few earthquakes in So. Cal. Prior to moving out there (I'm from Illinois), I'd only really seen earthquakes in the movies or TV shows and for some reason, assumed that the rumbling noise was just part of the special effects. The first earthquake I experienced was a 5.9 centered within 12 miles or so of our house in the early AM (3?). My first thought was "Holy Sh#@, someones backing a truck into our house....repeatedly..." After the repeatedly sunk in, I realized this was an earthquake. But for those of you in the east, who haven't experienced one, I can tell you, the noise, the rumbling etc. that's real.

The other fairly large earthquake I remember was the 1991 Sierra Madre earthquake 5.9 at about 8AM again about 12 miles from my house(different house). My boy was about 3 at the time and I sat with him on my lap in a door frame while my butt was thrown about 6" of the floor and stuff was falling out of the kitchen cabinets. Given what a 5.9 was like, I REALLY don't want to experience a 7....
 
Your instincts are good ones, Roger...7 ain't no fun at all. I remember after the bay quake, and after we'd moved to Joisey, I had occasion to speak with our car insurance agent from Fremont...he told me a story about a 70+ year old gent who'd bought a Ferrari, gone to the world series game and then the earthquake came....he went to the parking lot -- no car -- a month later, they brought him his license plate, the only thing left of the car...thieves were on the bridge when it collapsed (pancaked, as they called it) -- ultimate revenge against a thief, eh?
Caty
 
I was in Beatty, NV the day of the San Fran quake. I was to be in San Fran the following morning on business. Needless to say I did not go. That was the second close call involving quakes and me. In the first episode, I had left the Mt. St. Helen's USGA out post the day before the blast. The scientists that remained on post are no longer with us.
My buddies say I lead a charmed life... Butch
 
CatyMae n Steve":2xppoctx said:
Your instincts are good ones, Roger...7 ain't no fun at all.
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My mother lived in Capitola at the time, about 4 miles from the Loma Prieta epicenter. She called to let us know she was OK and while on the phone got a big aftershock. She just dropped the phone and ran outside while we sat worried, listening to odd noises. A few minutes later she picked it up again, said most everything was OK there but no power and hung up. It was three days before we could call her again - the rest of our family was in the east bay and Sacramento area. I could call Sacto but not East Bay or Capitola. Sacto could call Concord but not Capitola. It took some time but everyone checked in OK and mom's neighbor with an RV parked his RV so he could supply both his refrigerator and moms for the week it took to get power back. Indeed, 7's ain't no fun.

You guys in WA are due, as are the folks in the LA basin. Down here, they're saying the basin is overdue, as is the New Madrid fault in MO. They don't call LA Shake & Bake for nothing....

Don
 
The east is not immune from quakes. One of the strongest I've felt was in Vermont. My apartment was on top of a glacial esker (nice view) but the gravel sure magnified the shock.

Of course, I've felt the usual southern California ones as a kid visiting family in LA.

But the biggest earthquake I've experienced was in central Nevada in winter of 1968. We (two of us) were only a few miles from the epicenter; we counted down the moments to initiation of quake on a stopwatch; had hand-held radios on to summon a helicopter hovering overhead to pick us up if necessary -- when it touched off, the ground heaved in giant waves rolling toward us like large swells approaching the shore. The frozen ground groaned and squealed as the waves approached. We stood with feet far apart, right angles to the waves to keep from being thrown to the ground. A 10,000 foot mountain ten miles away shook like a dog -- giant boulders rolled down the flanks leaving trails of dust.

Yep -- a nuclear shot -- in the megaton range -- largest touched off in the continental US (and it was off the Nevada test site. Do you folks know that many nuclear shots have been off site? -- LA, AK, CO, NM -- to name a few). We were monitoring response in wells we had supervised drilled to 10,000 feet, and were the closest people on the ground to ground zero. Water shot up into the air like a fountain out of the wells. Lost all our instruments in one well. My partner became seasick and barfed all over his notes.

Big quakes are shocking -- moral to the story -- get outside, away from any buildings if you have time -- otherwise the doorway. It also helps some to finger the beads ...

nshm_us02.gif
 
You guys are too funny! With that kind of motion I would be afraid of pulling something loose :shock:

Bill,

Do you know the name of the shot and how far you where from ground zero? Who were you working for at that time?

Steve
 
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