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5.5 Earthquake Hits Canada; Felt in US Midwest, New England
joelmax writes "A magnitude 5.5 earthquake hit central Canada this afternoon, rattling buildings from Windsor to Montreal to several US states. The epicentre of the quake was in Quebec, 61 kilometres north of Ottawa, according to the US Geological Survey, and struck at 1:41 pm EDT." If you felt this quake, it would be great to put your location in the title of your comments, below — with lat/long coordinates even better.
I was in a boardroom on the 6th (top) floor of our building for a 1:30 pm meeting and just as we're getting underway the table and chairs were shaking. Was pretty heavy for about 20 seconds and then faded off over the next minute. We're a lot of government buildings so the policy is to evacuate. We actually tried to continue our meeting but then they finally got to our floor to check it out they found us and told us to leave. As you can guess, no more work is really being done today. It's pretty exciting for us as we don't get this here.
One interesting note, when I did go outside most everyone was on their cell phone and several were stating that they couldn't get service. I would guess because of the increase in volume at that time.
Get a map... its the east side of Canada.
Yes, Toronto is ego central though...
That's not exactly Central Canada. You can't go much farther east without being in the Atlantic. Granted, it probably impacted more Canadians than an earthquake anywhere else in the country would have.
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
But I figured a USGS link was in order.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
http://xkcd.com/723/
At first I thought it was because the US won their group on the world championship. But then I realised the are no football fans in America.
42.31124, -83.67578 Thought it was a particularly large person stomping around near my cube. The floor shimmied slightly. It was cool.
Inter-tube resonance effect of several million US soccer fans simultaneously typing "USA USA USA ..." into fifa fan chat. Thank you, Landon Donovan, for the afternoon off.
I opened my RSS feed reader and... woah! earthquake in Canada!
and below the title "1 person likes this" and a big smiley. there's some really crazy people out there..
Very mild here, three story building, almost undetectable movement. Quite a few people felt it at the office.
I felt it in my basement apartment in Toronto.
But was it really an earthquake, or did the thought of all those politicians gathering for the G20 make the ground vomit?
-I only code in BASIC.-
Or, to save time, you could just try querying the Twitter API for any tweets with the #earthquake tag, check the location of said tweets, and plug those into Google maps. Or, for an even faster (but more constrained) result, you could just check the USGS Did You Feel It? map. http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/dyfi/events/us/2010xwa7/us/index.html
I'm from California, a 5.5 is about a large truck going by. One time, we had a 5.4 in the Bay Area and it was one of those quick jolt ones. I thought the fat guy in the apartment above me fell down. I think we had a 5-something last week, I didn't notice since I was at Disneyland.
Actually we felt it in Boston. I could feel the swaying. I sent an IM to somebody asking if they felt it. Later they said they had. Once I read this message the the time 1:41pm EDT I noted that my IM message was sent at 1:44. My clock is probably off somewhat but that's close enough. I have felt other quakes in New England. This would be the fourth so it is not unheard of. Also much of Boston is filled-in land thus it tends to amplify the shock waves.
More details here. Growing up in Peru, and experiencing many earthquakes in my life time, you would think I would recognize an earthquake but I didn't feel a thing. 5.5 isn't a small shake either.
[alk]
For the same reason a snow storm in Mexico would be news. It's unusual for the location. As a resident of Ontario this is the first earthquake I remember us ever having.
Mississauga near Pearson Airport. 4th floor of office building. Wavy and shaking. Nothing was broken but you could really feel it. 43.638968,-79.609534
Felt it in Toronto
AccountKiller
45.47.0N, 73.50.60W.
Felt it at 1:40pm (guess my clock is off), it lasted for a good minute.
They made a pact to the devil.. They said, 'We will serve you if you will get us free of Quebec' True story. And so, the devil said, 'OK, it's a deal.' "
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
On the 10th floor of an office building, about three or four sequences of small thumps, lasted about 30 seconds total, each thumps felt slightly like when an elevator stops.
per dolorem ad astra
45.37623 N, 75.67543 W or so. I didn't think it was so bad, but my neighbours/Facebook friends seem to disagree.
As a side note, my cellphone is completely borked. Seems whenever the carriers become overloaded the damn thing won't even boot/function at all... time to grab the back up phone...
Sex. Drugs, and Unix.
Albany, NY 42.690969,-73.833092 This really got the California natives squawking about and comparing stories about their earthquakes. It really kind of ruined the excitement for me.
Community view (people reporting with lat/lon): http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/dyfi/events/us/2010xwa7/us/index.html Report your own experience: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/dyfi/events/us/2010xwa7/us/form.en.enabled.html
Felt the quake earlier. Wasn't sure at the time if it was an earthquake or my house was falling apart. Glad it's not the later.
I didn't feel it myself, but had several coworkers here and off site note that they had felt it.
On the 5th floor of the Key Bank building. EVERYBODY PANIC!!!
What a bunch of wimps.
Here in southern California, a mere 5.5 would hardly even arouse anyone's interest. Probably make page 1 of the local section unless the Padres made a big trade; then it would be relegated to page 2.
This ain't rocket surgery.
USGS page for the quake: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/us2010xwa7.php
Felt in Flint, MI 43036N 834124W
I was walking to the printer and couldn't feel it. However, all my co-workers who were sitting could feel it.
Felt it here in upstate New York. Very pronounced.
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
The USGS has a nice earthquake webpage http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/ with realtime earthquake reporting, with all earthquakes (hundreds of 4.5+ magnitudes per week around the world, thousands of 1.0+ magnitudes in/near the US per week) mapped out.
Here's their info on this particular 5.0 event. http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsus/Quakes/us2010xwa7.php
I tend to go to the USGS site every few days to see what's up, just out of curiosity's sake.
I work in downtown Toronto within the security zone for G20. At first we thought they were testing equipment or something but it didn't stop for about 30 seconds. First earthquake I have ever felt. Very odd feeling!
K Man
Nothing felt in either Forest Park Illinois or Westland (burb of Detroit) Michigan.
Ron Gage - Westland, MI
Felt it in the basement, several people above ground in buildings said they didn't feel it.
And there it is in the title for you.
Most definitely felt in Schenectady NY (Clifton Park, actually), about 300 miles south-east of the epicenter. Felt like the entire building was a ship on the ocean for a good 10 seconds.
6th Street Radio @ddombrowsky
Quebec's finally separating!
I was on the 5th floor and felt quite a bit of shaking for about 15 seconds. Good thing I have an old CRT monitor, or I wouldn't have been able to use the computer! I heard the quake caused a tsunami on Stephen Harper's fake lake. Either that or the G20 protesters jumping up and down.
I was only 28,931 registrations away from having a 6-digit UID
11th floor of my building. Lat 4629'33" Long 8059'26"
On the 3rd floor at work, just took some alergy meds so I thought the swaying I was feeling was a bit of a side effect. That was until everyone else started saying "YOU FEEL THAT??!!!"
It's in part of Canada that is prone to earthquakes, extending roughly along the Ottawa and St. Lawrence River Valleys. The increased activity along here is related to two factors: 1) this is an old "suture" where pieces of continents were accreted onto the rest of North America a long time ago (the later half of the Paleozoic) culminating in the building of the Appalachian Mountain system (the Appalachian Orogeny); 2) the suture stopped being an active plate boundary after the continental pieces were fused onto the continent, but crustal stress still occurs because of the relatively "recent" melting of the continental ice sheets ~10k years ago. The weight of the couple kilometres of ice during the glaciation depressed the crust, and much of central Canada has been experiencing isostatic rebound (i.e. rising back up again) ever since the weight was removed. That process slowly deforms the crust, and when the stress gets too great the rock moves, generating earthquakes. The stress tends to get released along old zones of crustal weakness (i.e. #1).
This seismic hazard map by the Geological Survey of Canada shows the increased risk along the St. Lawrence River rather nicely. More details here.
Having said all that, the level of activity in this part of Canada pales in comparison to earthquakes in the area of an active plate boundary, such as California, where the deformation rates are higher, the earthquakes more frequent, and often higher magnitude. It means that building codes along the St. Lawrence-Ottawa River Valleys are fairly strict when it comes to earthquake resistance, just in case, but a significant earthquake is still outside most people's everyday experience. I'm sure people are freaking out (I'm ~1000km away, so I felt nothing).
Latitude: 43.86
Longitude: -79.37
Everyone was on their cell, and I heard complaints of no 3G service.
I was on the 3rd floor and everyone immediately stood up (i.e. noticeable), but it wasn't strong enough to shake objects on my desk. People on the 1st floor didn't notice anything.
___________________ I want to be free()!
44.1557N 77.4298W Didn't feel much different than when the jets are coming in to land at CFB Trenton.
"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much." - Oscar Wilde
I'm working in a skyscrapper next to the central station in Montreal. http://maps.google.ca/?ie=UTF8&ll=45.501956,-73.561277&spn=0.018709,0.032487&t=h&z=15&iwloc=lyrftr:h,0x4cc91a5b0ef0a83f:0x242867c96dfae622,45.501926,-73.563337 My boss asked his neighbor to stop shaking his leg, it was shaking its desk... Besides that, most of us thought it was a loud truck passing by. Nothing serious to report. And unfortunately, no oh-nice-premature-end-of-work-day-everybody-panic-now!
Felt it in 1st floor Office for a short bit. LL = 43.491132,-83.396897 The guys on 2nd floor were a little more aware of it.
I was in Burlington on the 2nd floor and the floors and walls all wobbled, kind of cool 44.471806,-73.214529
In the not too distant future, next Sunday A.D.
If you felt this quake, it would be great to put your location in the title of your comments, below -- with lat/long coordinates even better.
...but do NOT post your zip+4 code, as that would be a huge invasion of privacy. :D
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Was in a meeting down by the Ford buildings when the tremors hit. Thought that they were doing construction on the level below us - didn't even know it was an earthquake until 30 minutes later.
The article says to post your location if you felt the quake. Should you post your location if you feel FOR the victims of this horrible light trembling? If so, can the mods change my title to "In my office, on the third floor of my house"? Thanks.
-Charlie
What a bunch of wimps.
Here in southern California, a mere 5.5 would hardly even arouse anyone's interest. Probably make page 1 of the local section unless the Padres made a big trade; then it would be relegated to page 2.
No kidding. There was a 5.7 quake down here a week ago - you know who cared? No one. But a 5.0 (not 5.5, reported by TFA) hits Canada, and it's a front page slashdot story.
Note that since the richter scale is logarithmic, a 5.7 quake is significantly stronger than a 5.0. I don't know the math, but there's at least an order of magnitude more energy released.
What you felt was probably not the quake, just ATI firing up their new silicon for Southern Islands. :)
-Charlie
I looked outside and saw wrecked cars strewn about. Some cars are overturned and on fire. Some buildings appear to be deteriorating in front of my very eyes.
They I remembered I'm in Upstate New York. People here can't drive. The state is broke. Yesterday looked pretty much the same.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
43924N 75205W
I'll try anything once. Twice if it tastes good
Strongest one I have ever felt. I felt and extremely minor one before and slept through the last one.
I am on the 4th floor. Significant shaking for about 30 seconds. Long enough to walk into several different rooms, then decide to retreat from vibrating windows in case they shattered(didn't know enough to know if it peaked). There seemed to be almost another minute of very gentle rocking that was still moving the monitor etc... Turned on a Radio to find out where the epicenter was. Figured it had to be pretty close.
I'm in London, Ontario and not a single person I know here has said they felt anything. I was in a classroom with ~35 other people at the exact time it happened and no one said or felt anything. I've seen reports that people in Sarnia (west of here) felt stuff, but nothing from people in London.
Anyone in/around London have anything?
#define true false
Felt on the 3rd floor (not sure about lower floors, needed the extra swaying of the building to feel anything).
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
because most of the world doesn't live in California.... we live on the East coast so we don't have to deal with earthquakes, wildfires or mexicans.... unfortunately all three have made their way here....
It's unusual for the location.
No, it isn't.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
Another one in Cleveland, at 3050 Prospect Ave.
Lat: 41.501395
Lon: -81.666189
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Ground felt like jelly, and everything was shaking for about 10 seconds. spent the next half hour confirming it even happend. wouldn't expect this out of the Canadian Shield. Also the airport was on high alert, they had over 10 CH-46 Sea Knights up in the air while police were everywhere.
They have revised it down to 5.0 per the USGS.
I did feel it. Was on a recliner sofa working on my laptop, and felt the sofa rock back and forth. Did not think it was a quake at the time. See
http://baheyeldin.com/places/canada/earthquake-2010-june-23-1341-quebecontario.html">here.
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
Just happened to be out and about at the time.
Om, nomnomnom...
A whole lot of stuff tumbled off my desk, including the artificial eyes stuffed into the deer skull I keep on a shelf. The floor was bouncing up and down and there was one particularly loud crack about 10 seconds in. The whole even lasted about 25-30 seconds. Some people evacuated, but most people just prairie dogged and asked what was happening, then went back to work.
We get a quake like that every 10 years or so in the area, and a lot of smaller ones more frequently.
Was downgraded to 5.0 though apparently. We get them occasionally but this is the strongest I recall.
I wonder if it caused a tsunami in Harper's fake lake...
Was out back of my store having a smoke. I heard it first - I thought one hell of a semi must be coming around the corner. Then I felt it, my feet shaking a bit - nothing scary, lasted about 30 seconds. Still kind of cool, only the second time I've felt an earthquake.
It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. - Krishnamurti
The whole building shook for 20-30 seconds. No damage here, but a nearby business reported lots of items toppling off shelves.
Felt my desk shaking here, although some half of my coworkers didn't feel it.
At first I thought it was some sort of explosion. But as it lasted I decided that it must be an earthquake. When dust began falling from the ceiling tiles I began to get a little worried, but it didn't get any stronger. If that was a 5.0, I can't even imagine what a major quake like a 7+ would be like.
About half the people evacuated the building, but mostly because it is really nice (29C) outside. I stayed inside to call my wife at home, who reported that the quake woke up the cat but that was about it.
Life is like a web application. Sometime you need cookies just to get by.
Ack!
Correct link here.
The coordinates are: 4328N 8031W
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
Only a few bumps felt.
Thought it was just some furniture or something being moved around upstairs, the usual joke being, "Oh, they've started up the bowling alley again.". However, after it went on longer than 5 seconds and bits starting falling off the ceiling, I started thinking earthquake, and the whole office got the heck out.
Ottawa gets minor earthquakes a few times a year, but this was the first one we've actually FELT in a long time.
Julie Moult is an idiot.
Thank God. That's thousands of miles from America.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Yeah, I felt it and first tought I was going crazy. But it is good to have this kind of confirmation.
Degrees Minutes Seconds:
Latitude: 43-11'52'' N
Longitude: 070-52'25'' W
Decimal Degrees:
Latitude: 43.1978624
Longitude: -70.8736698
Any word on who they're planning to charge for failing to predict this monster?
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Nice graph. But this made front page news because YES IT IS. I have lived here my entire life and never felt an earthquake before. Ever. Same with everyone else I know who was all "wtf hooser?". People didn't freak out and frontpage this because earthquakes are common fare round these parts. Whether the fault line causes anything or not is irrelevant to the fact that here in the GTA this is the first earthquake we've actually felt in decades.
Latitude: 42.775479 Longitude: -73.837910
You never expect irony, do you?
Want to be a professional wrestler? Visit www.iyfwrestling.com
@iyfwrestling
http://xkcdsucks.blogspot.com/2010/04/comic-723-waves-of-confusion.html
There is already a wikipedia entry for it (almost 1 hr ago) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Ontario_earthquake
Atlas stands on the earth and carries the celestial sphere on his shoulders.
On the fourth floor of my office building, we felt it. I noticed my desk moving, and my bobble-heads bobbling. Walked out of my office and everyone was running around, not sure what to do. Lasted for about 20 seconds, was mostly a swaying motion in my building. People on the ground didn't feel it as much, but up higher it was felt more. It subsided and we all sat back down and continued working. Don't get many quakes here in Pennsylvania - this was the first one I ever felt.
Turns out Quebec is trying to separate again
I'm from Saskatchewan, lived in Ottawa for a while, and my parents live in Vancouver.
In my books, BC is the "west coast", AB/SK/MB are the "western provinces", ONT/QUE are the "eastern provinces", and PEI/NS/NFLD/NB are "the maritimes" or the "east coast".
This has the benefit of lumping together regions that are culturally similar. MB is a bit odd, but geographically it's more west than east and it's definitely closer to SK/AB culturally.
Calling ONT/QUE the central provinces is ludicrous for anyone that owns a map.
I felt it in Montreal, QC, It's the first one I've felt since i was born and I'm 21, so for anyone saying its common then do your research. Just because everyone's talking about it doesnt mean we're freaking out over it, I felt more shaking this morning with construction on my street, so it's not a big deal other than it being rare.
I'm in London. I didn't feel it per-se, but.. it was felt by many in my office. I guess once you have train tracks in your back yard for a period of time, you tend to ignore little vibrations.
I'm in Windsor and I didn't feel a thing. I was in a car at the time though, so it's no surprise.
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
Coworkers in an eleven story building in Dayton, Ohio said they felt the building sway and cubical walls rocked back and forth. I was in Northern Cincinnati at the time and no one here felt anything.
Lat/Lon: 42.55 N 78.50 W
It was pretty minor, used to live on the west coast though so this was nothing.
I'm in Independence, OH, and I we felt it in the 6th floor of my building. At first I thought it was just my imagination due to it being so subtle, but the rhythmic swaying lasted for a little over a minute and was noticeable in pools of water and the office plants swaying.
When I felt the shaking, I glared at my coworker in the next cube, thinking he was stomping the floor. But he looked perplexed and the shaking was still going. Everyone was saying "Earthquake" so I went to Twitter and searched for "earthquake". Sure enough, there were tons of tweets on the topic.
-------
And we also have a cancel button...in case you don't want toast.
I bet you would freak out if there was snow in California. Hell, the UK was like a bunch of pussies last winter because of about 15 cm of snow (half a foot), using up all of their grit, and Canada gets more than that every winter.
It just depends on what you're used to.
(Disclaimer: I am Canadian.)
Felt it here on the Youngstown State University campus. People in two buildings experienced a shift in weight of the building, similar to someone pushing on the side of a car once or twice.
I was wondering why all the glassware in the lab was shaking this afternoon...
It is no coincidence that in no known language does the phrase 'As pretty as an Airport' appear.
Only one you irritating twits would compare it to the size of France. You know what french stop signs say on them? STOP, but that ain't good enough for the Quebecers, no you gotta be different.
The rest of the world was getting earthquakes and I was beginning to feel left out. I can now say that I survived the world's strongest earthquake (of the day ... so far ...).
At first I thought a dump truck made a wrong turn onto my street. Then it sounded like the neighbor's washing machine was doing a cartoon-style sympathetic vibration. It lasted long enough that I got out of my chair and stood in a door frame and think about what I would do in a serious quake, but it was really a non-event - just a little jolt of adrenaline for my cat and myself on an otherwise lazy summer day. It's a little embarrassing to see it on slashdot's front page - I feel like I should at least have a bruise or a stubbed toe to report to justify the newsworthiness.
mmm...
Everything is subjective, a 5.5 quake in Chile nowadays gets just a footnote on the newspaper.
On February 27th a Quake of magnitude 8.8 shook Concepción... and more than 500 Kilometers away (Santiago) came down to 8.3...
After that, a whole month several quakes ranging from 4 to 6 every day gave us total immunity against "minor" quakes.
It was just a baby quake for Chrissake. The only way anybody *wouldn't* be fine is if they happened to have their head under a guillotine with a quick-release tied to a seismometer arm.
Exactly. Mountains and mole-hills. I experienced two "earthquakes" of similar magnitude when I lived in Toronto in the 1980s.
I slept through the magnitude 5 event in January 1986 (no, I had not been drinking, just an ordinary night's sleep). Some neighbors said they were woken by plates rattling or stuff falling off shelves. Apparently my stuff was positioned more securely, as it was all still in place the next morning, and I only learned of the tremor (let's not exaggerate it into being an earthquake) from others after I got to work.
I was at work in the top floor of a six floor office block for the magnitude 6 event in November 1988. I could not hit the keys reliably on my keyboard leading to many typing errors, but assumed the building shuddering repeatedly was because there was major work going on in one of the elevator shafts. Found out later from the TV news that it had been an earthquake.
It would be different at the epicenter, but earthquakes in Eastern Canada tend to be centered in sparsely inhabited areas.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
About 8 seconds of rocking in Bridport Vermont, about 30 miles south of Burlington Vermont
Not to nitpick, but if you tell someone from Newfoundland they're from a maritime province you might be in for a smack. Better off using the term "Atlantic Provinces".
Just Mike Holmes gutting another building. No need to panic. He'll get around to leveling New York's unstable brick buildings later.
Yeah, I was in a meeting too and got told to leave afterwards, which considering how light the shaking was here (barely noticable) was truly lame. The difference with us is that after ten minutes standing around in our gathering spot, we trooped back to the office and back to work. I guess we're not going to be able to do anything for the next two days anyway because of G8/G20 and we're not allowed to come in to work then, so they had to at least get this afternoon out of us.
- ------- There are ten kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary, and those who... Huh?
We felt it up here, eh. Thought the ice was breaking up on the Mackenzie River early. Nope, still froze solid. It was just a gosh darned earthquake.
Have gnu, will travel.
We've had a few, the one in Ohio a few years ago. Another in Ontario back in the 80's. They're just really rare to feel with any strength in Ontario.
Om, nomnomnom...
I felt the emotional impact.
Escape Pod Films: Sketch Comedy and Web Series
I was sitting very still with a mug of coffee at my side when it all happened. I first looked over my shoulder to see if a train was coming by. Then I panicked thinking there might be a T-Rex stalking me. Thankfully it was just Canada acting up again. 44.6,-73.4
You are confusing "unusual" with "uncommon." It would be unusual if it was particularly strong or if it was in a place where earthquakes are rare. It is neither.
Here on the west coast of North America, large subduction zone earthquakes happen every 300-500 years. That does not make them unusual. It makes them uncommon.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
No, that's not London, UK.
(am I the only one who hates it when towns "steal" names from major cities? Example: Moscow, Maine. WTF?)
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
I'm in Pittsburgh, PA. Didn't feel a thing. Might have been asleep, though.
Also, obligatory xkcd.
Let q be a radix > 1. I am in ur base-q, killing 10 d00ds.
MB is a bit odd,...
What do you mean we're odd? Just because our license plates say "Friendly Manitoba", doesn't mean we're odd. Many of us are just as unfriendly, and as pissed with "Central Canada", as you Saskies!
Earthquakes happen there because of a fault lines that are million of years old. They tend to build up a strain over time, and move occasionally when the strain is high enough. This usually only happens every 10 to 500 years (or longer), depending on the size of the earthquake. What also matter is how fast the strain is building up in the crust. That can be a different in the same area, depending on rock type and other factors.
But there are many fault lines in this area, so earthquakes do happen regularly at this area. Even so, they are not that common.
EMSC has good map of the earthquake, and past earthquakes in this are since 1964.
http://www.emsc-csem.org/index.php?page=current&sub=detail&id=174972#
Please note that the EMSC link can stop working at any time.
Well now you're just being pedantic.
We felt it on the top (third) floor of our building. The closest I've experienced to this is if someone is running through the cubicle farm, where the floor shakes a bit. This was definitely more of a side-to-side shake, though. Felt a little dizzy. Good preparation for my future dream move to San Francisco!
I lived in Calgary for a couple of years, which is warmer than Edmonton but not by all that much. It never got anywhere near that cold.
Since recordings began, the only time it dropped to -40C or lower in downtown Edmonton was January 26, 1972. That was a Wednesday, not a Tuesday, by the way.
The last one I felt on the shores of Lake Ontario was over 5.0 and was around 1998 (confirmed by today's article in the Toronto Star).
Earthquakes in Lake Ontario aren't rare, we get a couple dozen a year, just not big enough to feel them. This one was at least 3 or 4 times as long as the last one I felt, and I've heard of 2 or 3 since then that others felt but I didn't.
Just because you haven't felt them doesn't mean they haven't happened!
My lab is on the 4th floor of an old building downtown Toronto and I definitely felt it. I have lived in this area my whole life and have never felt an earthquake before. At first I didn't know what it was, once I figured it out I started moving to the stairs.
I know lots of people get more and bigger earth quakes then this, but for a first timer like me it's pretty freaky. Ancient 400lb spectrum analyzers don't normally move.
lat=43.660153
lon=-79.376972
I live in Talca, so I share your dismay. I only realized how desensitized I was when I incorporated a 5.7 into my dream, but didn't wake up.
Y vamos La Roja!
(I was only an egg, but then I cracked)
There you go supporting the Torontonians belief that they're at the centre of the universe again! We didn't feel it out here on the Wet Coast, BTW...
You think that's confusing....Google Upper Canada.
I'm not a nerd. Nerds are smart.
I noticed my seat and desk shaking, not significantly but definitely noticeable. I wondered if it might be an earthquake as the monitor began shaking as well. It persisted for a good 15 seconds, maybe longer. It was persisted enough that there was no question it was anything but an earthquake.
It took a while for it to show up on the USGS site.
The USGS has website where they collect "did you feel it" information. By gathering information as to how severe and widespread the shaking is, they can figure out how future quakes will affect various parts of the country. That in turn affects making informed decisions as to how rigorous building codes need to be.
I was in the Rideau Centre, a large shopping mall in downtown Ottawa. Everyone's first thought that the new convention centre, which under construction and attached to the mall, had suffered some kind of construction mishap and was falling down, maybe bringing the rest of the building with it. The shaking wasn't too intense, but it was strong enough to make everyone think that leaving the building would be a very good idea. The mall was quite busy but to everyone's credit, there was no panic; just sort of a general consensus that we'd all better head outside ASAP until we know what's going on. I know it was a relatively weak earthquake, but when you're in a big building and you see everything moving back and forth, getting out of there until you've had time to assess the situation seems like a pretty reasonable thing to do.
That may be true, but only because geology was one of my areas of academic interest in college. I wouldn't be pedantic if I wasn't very interested in the subject. Hopefully you understand.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
Oh completelty. Hell, you could have responded "of course I am, this is /." and I've have understood. It's like when people confuse Schizophrenia and Disassociative Identity Disorder (not Multiple Personality Disorder, that's not a thing anymore)
In Tahoe, it would be a fairly normal winter. Or have you forgotten that California is a large state and has a rather tall mountain range covering most of the eastern edge of it?
Just making sure everyone knows their facts: Remember magnitude doesn't measure INTENSITY of shaking but instead amount of energy released at the moment the earthquake begins. Yes, the scale is logarithmic. So, a 5.0 earthquake is 32 times stronger than a 4.0, with a 6.0 releasing more than 1000 times the energy of a 4.0. Feeling that 5.7 on the 15th of this month here in SoCal, the first thing that pops in my head is "How strong is this one going to feel - is it the Big One"? It's actually quite cool to be able to feel the P-waves arrive first followed by the S-waves if the earthquake is both strong enough and far away enough for speed differences to be noticed. It's also nice to notice someone mention the glacial rebound earthquakes of areas in far NE U.S. and S.E. Canada - that's the first thing I guessed the moment I heard about it.
I'm from Hamilton, Ontario Canada my house shook a little, felt odd that's all. 4312'50.61"N 7947'19.50"W
I work near Cincinnati, OH, and we felt it in our office building.
But, better than reporting at /., go report if you felt it at usgs.gov. They have a "Did you feel it?" feature which lets you submit info about it, and then it maps the info, and creates lists of responses collated by zipcode, etc, and allows the usgs to create a public record of it that anyone (not just /.ers) can check out.
looks like it was down graded to a 5.0 [stats link here]
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/us2010xwa7.php
felt it here for about 15-20 seconds
i felt the quake last night about 8:15PM when i was in the mall. Providence. maybe it was just illusion?
I was in NYC and didn't notice anything. But then, I was on the PATH, on one of the older cars, so I'd not have noticed anything that didn't actually knock the car off the track.
Being a GIS student, I was in the middle of writing a mid-term for Remote Sensing at Algonquin College when this puppy hit. Third floor of the tech building. Some good shaking but the noise was what stuck with me. Underground thunder! Nearest to this was back around the early nineties when I was working as a mechanic. I had a car on jack stands and it started rocking back and forth. No sound like this one though. Very cool!
I felt shaking in my apartment for 25-45 seconds in North Syracuse, accompanied by my LCD and desk wiggling
Thought I was having another flashback. Then I thougt "could this be an earthquake?" And then I was like "nahhhh there's never been an earthquake 'round these parts!" Then I went back to editing my Flash animation...
I was at 45.292396,-75.930398 at the time, according to Google Maps. Since I've been playing Fallout 3 lately, my first thought was "Oh shit, the Americans have dropped the bomb on us!"
For every action there is a completely absurd lawsuit.
I felt it. I didn't realize this was an earthquake at first. I thought I was shaking uncontrollably from the AC being too cold.
I felt the quake in Montreal today, while working at home with my girlfriend. Although no dishes in our 3rd story apartment fell from the shelves and no structural damage to the building was immediately visible, it did serve as a good exercise about what to do in the event of a larger quake.
My girlfriend suggested that we stand in the middle of the building close to no visible exits. In spite of my immediate instinct to run down the stairs that we were directly beside, i went with her, which probably would have been a bad call, if the quake had been any larger in magnitude. In other words, if the building had collapsed we probably would have been trapped under debris.
The moral of the story is, that its sometimes a much wiser decision to exactly the opposite of what your girlfriend wants, even if it means that you won't be getting any for a few days.
A few of us on the 6th floor of our building felt a little sway. Didn't know what to make of it until I read about it a couple hours later...
... if that's your best, your best won't do... - Twisted Sister
Remember kids post your most recent big purchases and our work schedule with your latitudes and longitudes, this is soo important to research and will not be used to furnish my house.
42.3261 N, 83.039 W, or thereabouts. Enough to get my attention, but not enough to seriously alarm anyone. Some of my cow-orkers didn't even notice. We didn't even get anything over the RenCen intercom.
Sorry, can't give l&l, because I don't know them, but I felt the quake here in Toronto.
Michael
http://s1.sfgame.us/index.php?rec=58163
Whoever modded this off-topic probably also has trouble grasping the relationship between milk and cereal.
Stretch your brain. You're not a house pet.
-FL
Felt it here. Stuff rattled like a truck was going by, only without the rumble associated with an actual truck. Also, it persisted for far too long.
My first earthquake!
Soylens viridis homines es
Felt it quite strongly as I was near the epicenter ~20 km away roughly. Felt like a really big bus was coming at first and then the noise and the shaking got way worse. Very cool to feel the earth literally moving under your feet. My daughters school was evacuated when we got there to pick her up.
Toria
We felt the quake for about 30 seconds - Fairly good shake for this area..
I was at work on the east side of Ottawa, but not as far as Orleans, in a technology shop of sorts. I've never experienced an earthquake, so it didn't really register in my psyche, and I thought it was a truck at first... but after a few seconds, that didn't make sense, and a co-worker pointed out that it was an earthquake. We all got outside just as it was ending, and we went back to work after trying to call loved ones on cell phones with no success because a few million other people were doing the same thing.
lat=43.128418
lon=-71.444092
Per Google maps, anyhow...
I'm too lazy to enter a sig. Hey wait a second! You tricked me!
In Ottawa, I gauged it to be about 4-5. News said it was 5 (although 5.5 and 5.7 were bandied about). Didn't seem that bad (I spent my teens in LA so I had some exposure to decent earthquakes.
This is what the rest of the world thinks about American Football... http://www.vennding.com/2010/06/americans-sometimes-its-hard-to-take.html
Sitting at the computer, felt the chair moving up and down and heard a rumble... thought 'earthquake' but they are so rare here: then thought HUGE truck or explosion.
My first earthquake (blushing virgin)!
soylentnews.org Go there to enjoy the people!
Hazel Park, Michigan
Forgive me if I point you to downtown instead of my house.
loose: not fitting closely or tightly != lose: to suffer the deprivation of
I'm from Costa Rica where we get earthquakes of this magnitude and greater on a regular basis. Needless to say it caught me by surprise while I sat in my hotel room here in Buffalo. My fist thought was "oh, an earthquake". Then "hey wait a minute, this is normal back home but not here!".
As for GPS co-ordinates, google Buffalo City Hall. I can see it from my window.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I felt it here in Indianapolis.
Latitude = 39.773895
Longitude = -86.160965
I thought the U.S. Prez landed in Toronto with all his might. (and security entourage).
Having grown up on the West Coast of Canada, and lived in California and 5 years in Japan... this earthquake was barely even noticeable in Montreal, despite co-workers panicking. Potted plant balanced on my cubicle wall still sitting there. A lot of overreaction in a region not used to earthquakes.
Do not get me wrong, I hope no one got hurt and that there is no serious damage. I also understand that it can be frightening for the ones not used to this.
But .... since I moved to Costa Rica, I am completely used to 5-6 quakes... Yes, there are places where I do not want to be in one, some mountain roads and villages were leveled 2 years ago, but in our house I barely even move when it starts shaking. At least every 3 weeks there is a smaller one you feel, and just get used to it.
Honestly here a 5.something is considered a no event. Even though after each 5+ the news channel brings on the local vulcanologists, they usually tell the strength, location, depth, and report, that in a store some glasses fell off the shelf. Then commercial and then you go back to whatever you did before. Actually it is not a bad thing, the country has 5+ active volcanoes, some of which are pretty alarming nowadays.... The closest volcano is a 20-25 minute mountain ride (on a fast dirtbike and an ok rider). The next one is like 60 kilometers. 2 are recently smoking, bubbling, and throwing some ashes. And then there is this SPA place, where you sit in a thermal river (with different streams having different temps), and if the gods of weather permits, you can enjoy a pina colada in the hot pool , feeling the rumble and seeing the mountain puke red lava :) .... OKOK ... too much detail.
Anyways, some alarmists suggest, that volcanic activity is increasing nowadays, with stronger quakes and misbehaving volcanoes. Maybe people just watch too much 2012 movies.... never bothered really searching for data on this one ....
Was in my 2nd floor bedroom when the quake struck. It was a unique experience to say the least... and loud... really loud. Latitude = 45.3624, Longitude = -75.9309 / Lat = 45 degrees, 21.7 minutes North Long = 75 degrees, 55.9 minutes West
Okay, I pulled two different dictionaries and naturally one says unusual and uncommon are synonyms and another restricts 'unusual' to "uncommon in amount or degree." I happen to agree more with the latter, I guess.
I'll concede, though. Unusual and uncommon can be synonyms according to certain sources and people.
I wonder if the difference is regional in nature.
Geology rocks (to keep it on-topic) and so does language!
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
Around 1:45PM give or take 10 minutes our office building did a nice little shimmy. It was enough for them to evacuate the building for a couple hours.
Cooridnates: 40.611916, -75.537497
London, ON is quite a ways from the epicentre of the quake, so here it was more of a rumble probably in the realm of 4.2 to 4.5 on the scale. I work in the Support Services Building of the University of Western Ontario, and here a lot of us thought it was just one of our Physical Plant or MAC groups moving something heavy across the building bridge again - we get rumbles that shake the building all the time as a result of that sort of thing, so a lot of us didn't think too much of it until we learned later it was an earthquake.
Believe it or not, so many people can't do F C conversions that they don't realize -40 is equivalent in both systems.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
I live around Ottawa and the animals at home wanted out shortly before the quake hit. The dog strangely went away from the house and sat looking back at me as if to say 'aren't you coming?'. She had no other intention than to sit there. Then the cat broke from one of her 50 naps a day and also showed up at the door running out away from the house.
I convinced the dog to come back but she stuck close to my legs and sat under them as i returned to the computer in the basement.
Then it began. At first I thought it was a big tuck outside rumbling down the street. In those brief seconds. The the noise increased with more shaking. I live on the airport flight path and suddenly thought perhaps a plane was in trouble low over the house, just as I realized it was an earth quake. Now the keyboard was vibrating and books fell from the bookshelf. So I quickly moved over, with the dog tripping around my feet, to the stairwell for best possible structural support. Now the concrete floor was moving up and down and the noise from the upper floors rattling was quite loud. after about 30 seconds more things quieted down and all was quite. I returned upstairs with the dog still close by. The cat had returned wanting in the backdoor. She quickly returned to new nap 25.
To top all this off. My cottage is located very near the epicentre. It is on the side of one of the thousands of Gatineau hills. There are many very large rocks above and around it. One large multi-ton one in particular is perched over the steep driveway. The same for many 100ft trees and lesser sized ones on my double lot size. I will need to go up there as the news reports damage to buildings in a town just a few km/miles down the road from the cottage. However there are also blocked roads and a bridge collapse to negotiate.
Although a mag 5 is rather small by some standards. It is very unusual for this area to feel more than a mag 4 with most being in the 2-3 range. The fault line is on the Ottawa river and is part of a very old as in maybe a 250 million year old system, that is mostly very quite in it's rumbling.
You're confusing unusual with inexplicable or unexplainable.
Unusual does in fact mean infrequent. And quakes in the region certainly are infrequent.
However, of all the regions of central to eastern Canada, this is the area most likely to experience quakes, and as such, this is not an entirely unexpected event.
It is still very unusual.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
The most spectacular aftereffect was the crowds of wide-awake civil servants searching for coffee and a donut.
Normally they'd be sound asleep.
Felt it. I actually thought it was a really heavy cart that someone was pushing down the hallway outside my office. Then the cart stopped but things kept shaking.
Not to mention there's barely anything/anybody in the prairies.
I realize you said prairies, but if you count B.C., there is a 1/3 of Canada's population east of Ontario...
Interesting.
Our monitors started to sway back and forth and the floor rumbled a bit..
you know you can fry stuff putting things into things that dont like the things you put into it...
I understand the definitions, but I've always taken unusual to have more of a connotation of "not normal and not often". While uncommon has a more "normal, but not often".
I guess this difference in connotation is a result of being repeatedly told throughout school that someone is "normal, just not average".
By the way, speaking about confusing terms. Every time I read your sig I'm just about to congratulate and thank you for the gold.
Interesting.
My mom (Mary Ann Kelch) and sister (Amy Kelch) have/used to work there. I need to call them and see if they felt anything, they live in Chili.
VASIMR to Mars!
I really should cheer for Detroit, but I don't.
Notably, I always argued in class that the more mathematical definition of normal than the politically correct one.
That is to say, its not normal to be 7' tall or to have size 3 feet when fully grown, its also not polite to point it out to people.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
I was told yesterday that I was a standard deviant.
Interesting.
Was on the 5th floor building looking out a corner window when it hit. Felt like nausea. Could see the whole building move. Very unsettling. Didn't last long, maybe 10-15 seconds, and probably took me 2 or 3 seconds to figure out what the heck was going on. Never felt a quake before!