Central U.S. Earthquake Info

ronbo142 writes "The United States Geological Survey site has real time (or close to it) information on the now two significant events of the day. Check out their site to enter your experience and view other event specific information."

Comments

Re:5.2 is not a big quake

[Kelson]

I'll admit, my first thought as a lifelong Californian was, "What, only 5.2?"

Of course, when we get half an inch of rain here, the TV starts blathering about STORMWATCH 2008. It's all about what's typical for the region.

Re:5.2 is not a big quake

[Thumper_SVX]

Becuase although on the global scale it's pretty small, on the local scale of Southern Illinois it's a doozy. I live in St. Louis, and for many of my peers (being in my mid 30's) it's the first quake that's been felt in living memory. Sure there have been smaller magnitude 2 or 3 quakes, but the last 5.x quake in the area was in 1968... before I was even born. Granted, I'm not a St. Louis native, either.

I have to admit though, the first one I probably would have slept through had it not been for my wife panicking and connecting her elbow with my face, but the second I felt as I was sitting at my desk at work and watched my monitors wobble back and forth. The second I could've easily mistaken for a large convoy of trucks going past the office if only our office was on a bridge over the highway. The first, once I was standing up (thanks to the expedient of body parts) was enough to shake the entire house and toppled a table lamp. Other than that at first my rather groggy brain started to wonder if it was just something freaky happening with my house until I opened the back door to let my dog out and heard what sounded like a rioting zoo in the woods behind my house. Then I knew it was a quake, and then it was just a matter of going to USGS website and seeing what the magnitude was.

Really quite an odd experience. Although they talk a lot about the New Madrid fault and how an earthquake of 7+ magnitude is overdue, you don't really think about it much until a quake really hits. On the bright side, maybe this mornings tremors will make people think more about earthquakes and the effect they can have.

5.2 is a big quake to those who've never felt one before. My personal high is a 6.8 but that wasn't in St. Louis, either :)

Not a big deal

[Arcturax]

Ground rumbled a bit, a few things fell over. This is nothing major so I don't know what the big deal is other than it's a slow news day. I remember there was a rumble in Ohio in '87 that got about this much attention. There was also a fun man made earthquake I witnessed in the Middletown, Ohio area in the late 90's. It was caused by an underground blast furnace explosion at AK Steel and other than the booming roar of the explosion, it felt like a real earthquake and sent stuff falling off shelves at the Meijer store I worked at several miles away and blew windows out in homes near the plant. Thankfully no one was hurt or killed at the plant that night.

We have far more to worry about with industrial accidents, dangerous railroad crossings and crazy weather around here.