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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...
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.
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.-
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.
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).
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
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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.
It's unusual for the location.
No, it isn't.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
Don't worry. When California gets its largest quake since 1935, people will stand up and notice that too.
Thank God. That's thousands of miles from America.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
It was pretty cool.
Are we talking about the same Michigan? I was on a flight that landed in Detroit at about 2pm CST, and on the way to my destination I saw NUMEROUS buildings just devastated by the earthquake, a lack of essential services, disruption of civil order, severe deterioration of roads and infrastructure, looting in broad daylight ... you name it.
They must have been near the earthquake's epicenter.
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