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

Click-through

[saveth]

With the supplied link, you need to click through to the Illinois data set.

Or, just click this one: http://pasadena.wr.usgs.gov/shake/cus/

It woke me up

[XxtraLarGe]

I woke up at about 5:40 to the bed vibrating a little bit. I live in south central Michigan near the Ohio/Indiana boarders. At first I thought the cat jumped up on the bed, but he didn't then I thought maybe my wife was shaking, but she was still. It sort of felt like the massaging neck pillow I have, but all over the bed. I got up and took a shower. My wife came down a little later and I said "I think we had an Earthquake." She told me I was crazy, then she saw it in the news a little later in the day, and sent me a link for the USGS. I filled out my info earlier this morning.

Re:It woke me up

[mitchellsoft]

So how much did the Magic Fingers attachment set you back? 16 years, 2 kids, a divorce and a house payment. Isn't that what it costs everybody?

Bed Shaking Fun

[danbert8]

My girlfriend claims her bed shook from the earthquake last night and woke her up... I couldn't break the truth that it was really me! (zing)
 
Seriously though, it did wake her up and we live in Dayton, OH.
 
(note: I know no one will believe me that a slashdot person has a girlfriend, but she is a civil engineering major, and thus also a geek)

Only one moderate quake and an aftershock

[Somegeek]

The summary makes it seem like there have been two different big quakes. In actuality there was a moderate 5.2 followed by what is apparently a 4.6 aftershock.

Re:Only one moderate quake and an aftershock

[jonadab]

> The summary makes it seem like there have been two different big quakes.
> In actuality there was a moderate 5.2 followed by what is apparently a 4.6 aftershock.

In the midwest, a 4.6 is a pretty big quake. There aren't any fault lines in the area, so we don't often get much above a 3. 5.2 is record-books stuff, no fooling.

We don't get hurricanes either. Our primary form of "natural disaster", in terms of frequency, is probably either ice storm or flood, though of course the first thing everybody thinks when you say "natural disaster" is tornado. We had a blizzard in '78...

But an earthquake big enough that you can actually _feel_ it, even if it just feels like an especially large truck drove down the street past your house, and even if only a small percentage of the population feels it at the time, is the stuff of legend. People who think they might have felt the tremor will talk about it for _years_, I kid you not.

Oh noes we'll be Yellowstowned!

[FatSean]

That giant ring of fire is on it's way, just like TV predicted!

"two significant events"

[Anonymous Coward]

The submitter is talking about two earthquakes today in the US.

I slept right through it

[Cro Magnon]

Which proves what I already suspected. My snoring is worse than an earthquake!

I Survived the Great Quake of 2008

[dunezone]

I actually live 30 minutes outside of Chicago in the Joliet area. It was definitely one of those "WTF" moments, you didn't think earthquake because most of them out here go unnoticed and it was such a gentle rocking back and forth. There have been several aftershocks since the first one early in the morning. My roommate said around 11pm central time there was nice aftershock.

PS, I honestly thought there was a monster under my bed last night during the initial shake.

When will people listen?

[peipas]

I've been saying all along, it's only a matter of time before the entire state of Illinois slides into Lake Michigan.

One of the largest in recent history.

[suso]

Apparently this is the largest one in the Midwest since the magnitude 5.4 one in 1968 that was also in Southern Illinois.

Webicorders?

[jd]

In the Pacific Northwest, there are webicorders - online seismographs for the volcanos and other potentially unstable regions. The major earthquake that caused the devastating 26 Dec (Boxing Day) tsunami a few years back showed up extremely clearly on these. The shockwaves were not just large enough to register, but large enough to show up as a massive feature. If those graphs are still online, they would make for good material in a basic course on geology.

What I don't know is whether there is anything comparable in the areas affected by these central US tremors. A description of experiences is useful, but plenty of reports will have those. Those are easy to come by. Much rarer is actual raw data, actual hard information on the nature of the quake. A quantitative experience, rather than a qualitative one. There will be much more to the story than what could be felt or described through experience, and that "more" bit is the bit that seperates understanding from simply witnessing. The latter facilitates understanding but is not a substitute for it.

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.

God is a Civil Engineer

[spun]

See if she's heard this one. A mechanical engineer, electrical engineer, and a civil engineer are discussing God. They all agree he must be an engineer, but what kind? They each present their case. The mechanical engineer says, "look at the human body, the perfection of the joints, bones and muscle. Obviously, God is a mechanical engineer." To which the electrical engineer counters, "But look at the human mind and nervous system! Surely God is an electrical engineer!" They both look at the civil engineer, who shrugs and says, "Who else would put the sewer outflow in the middle of the entertainment district?"

In SPringfield, I slept through the 5.2, but ..

[the_rajah]

my wife was awake for the 5.2 and was at her computer working on a writing assignment. She immediately went to the USGS site to check out what had happened and then filed an online report there of where she was and what she experienced.

I was awake and in my office for the 4.6 aftershock. It rattled some things, but nothing fell off shelves, etc. No panic, although I did have some thoughts about the 100+ year old brick wall of the adjoining building that forms one side of my office.

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.

Re:Not a big deal

[AbsoluteXyro]

While other threats like severe weather are much more imminent, I wouldn't write off the possibility of a major quake in the mid-US. Anywhere there are active faults, it isn't matter of if, but when. You should all at least have a basic understanding of what to do to protect yourself during a quake, and this little shake-up should serve as a reminder.

Re:The tinfoil on my head says....

[cromar]

In 1811 there was a major earthquake of 7-8 on the richter scale (estimated). It actually caused the Mississippi to run backwards. Hopefully the New Madrid is not going to have another such earthquake for a long time, but who knows!

New Madrid fault line

[jonfr]

The main earthquake and the aftershock are on an fault line known as the New Madrid fault line. This fault line is known for making earthquakes up to 8 on the ricther scale. Last time that did happen was in the 19th century.

I am fairly sure that this event now is part of normal movement of the fault line, due to happen every 20 to 50 years.

People in the area should expect aftershocks in the next one or two weeks, maybe longer. Btu the aftershock pattern depends on many factors that I don't know all.

For those interested the waveform of the earthquake was recorded by people interested in recording earthquakes in nearby states. The plots can be seen here, http://www.simnet.is/jonfr500/earthquake/othersten.htm

But I have collected them into one nice web page. The data is near real time and is updated every 5 min, at least that is the case for most of the plots

animals and earthquakes

[Rogue Haggis Landing]

The shaking woke me up. At first I thought the upstairs neighbors were being obnoxious again. The misses thought it was a ghost. Then our heads cleared and we realized, "Earthquake!"

Our first thought was that animals are supposed to behave strangely during earthquakes, or after them, or before them, some time around earthquakes. It was 4:40 in the morning so we were hazy on the specifics. Anyway, eager to experiment we leaped out of bed and ran into the front room to where our cat Geoffrey sleeps on the couch. We yelped at him, "Geoffrey! Geoffrey! Earthquake! Do something!"

Geoffrey looked at us with an expression that said, "Who the hell are you?" Then it changed to, "Leave me the #$#! alone." And finally it went to, "As long as we're all up you might as well feed me."

Our conclusion is that animals don't give a crap about earthquakes.

Re:5.2 is not a big quake

[Thumper_SVX]

I agree with most of your comments, but the bit about being more than 100 miles from the epicenter and not feeling it... there I disagree.

I live in St. Charles, 160 miles from the epicenter of this morning's quakes... as the crow flies. I definitely felt it both times, as did my wife and kids. As did a number of people as most of the neighborhood were up in pretty short order after the quake (I could see a number of TV's on, trying to watch the news). The timing was also too perfect to be coincidence, twice.

The fact is a quake's ability to shake things over distance depends precisely on what the ground is made of. Some materials soak up the shockwaves quickly (like the rocks of California), whereas others will transmit the waves over massive distances with very little dissipation (like the rocks in the Midwest). There are a lot more factors than just distance and even rock consitution, but you get my drift.

At the epicenter, it was a 5.2. On instruments in downtown St. Louis it registered 5.1 at its peak and rumbled for up to two minutes from the initial shock. That's 140 miles as the crow flies and little to no dissipation.

Now, another friend of mine who works at the USGS in Rolla, MO (about another 70 miles) says they picked up barely 4.0, so it's clear it dissipated quickly through Missouri but transmitted nicely through Illinois.

Still, it's all relatively academic at this point. More knowledgeable people than me are looking at the results from todays quake, and I'm sure they're finding more interesting stuff than I can with just two datapoints... and besides, I'm not a geologist :)

As for your final comment though...agreed there. I've had the (mis)fortune to be involved in all kinds of natural disasters in my life, mostly because I traveled a lot in my youth. I've encountered quakes, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes and survived to tell the tale... and wouldn't trade the experience for anything. It means sometimes to my friends I have a rather carefree attitude to these things, but experience has taught me to respect nature... not fear it.

Re:Foreshocks, or is that it?

[node 3]

Foreshocks only become foreshocks once the main quake happens.

Or, put differently, to know these are foreshocks before the main quake happens requires a level of earthquake prediction we do not yet have.

Re:5.2 is not a big quake

[Traxxas]

good day high UIDs