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5.8 Earthquake Aug 23, 2011


Kmlwx
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No such luck. Was working in the Towson office today (next to courthouse). 7 floors up, rather than 20.

And, um, 7 was plenty high up. Talking to clients, dawning realization that it was an earthquake, mostly when the large table began to move.

None of my co-workers at my usual office are answering the phone, so I am guessing they are outside at the moment. Will be curious myself how that felt.

damn, i was really curious to see what you felt. it was pretty wicked 3 stories up.. and yes, everyone was out on the street shortly afterwards. Though buses were still running as scheduled! haha

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I see folks using the word "violent" a lot.

That's actually a semi-technical term with a specific meaning-- i.e., that the quake produced MM IX shaking or higher. Usually in violent shaking, you have kitchen cupboards and refrigerators flying open and emptying and buildings collapsing and things like that. I don't think this quake produced violent shaking.

Here's an entry about the MM scale: http://en.wikipedia....intensity_scale

Thanks for the link, Josh! Wish I had that before I sent my report in to USGS. I said "Moderate" in my report, but based on that, it was "Rather Strong" or possibly even "Strong". My exact thought was that it felt like a freight train was speeding by my office.

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Californians always have a field day when quakes happen in non quake areas. I've felt plenty ... It was 'violent' for a few seconds by our standards.

Easy to mock us when living/working in buildings built to withstand a quake. About to go hang out with a couple of Cali friends, I'm sure I will be summarily made fun of.

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Californians always have a field day when quakes happen in non quake areas. I've felt plenty ... It was 'violent' for a few seconds by our standards.

Up on my 3rd floor it was fairly substantial. Violent? Hard to say as this was a first time event of this magnitude for many of us. Shyt was shakin tho

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Based on the descriptions in these threads, that sounds about right-- in the IV-V range.

When you get up into oranges and reds (VII and above) that it starts getting kind of insane.

Mod seems about right, definitely shaking and rattling going on during it. but nothing fell over, at least in my cube.

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Californians always have a field day when quakes happen in non quake areas. I've felt plenty ... It was 'violent' for a few seconds by our standards.

If you're referring to me-- since I'm the only Californian in this thread (:D): I'm not making fun of the event. It was obviously significant. I felt people would be interested to see the MM scale to understand where this event falls compared with other quakes, and also to learn that "violent" actually means specific things when discussing quakes.

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Up on my 3rd floor it was fairly substantial. Violent? Hard to say as this was a first time event of this magnitude for many of us. Shyt was shakin tho

I'm sure it depends on where you were etc. I'm not that concerned with a scientific term in a random discusion on a weather board. If it had been much bigger/closer to DC we'd have been in deep **** so we should just be happy it was not.

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Based on the descriptions in these threads, that sounds about right-- in the IV-V range.

When you get up into oranges and reds (VII and above) that it starts getting kind of insane.

Sounds right to me. Nothing broken here, but there's no way anyone inside could have missed it. Felt more like a train passing nearby than a truck.

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If you're referring to me-- since I'm the only Californian in this thread (:D): I'm not making fun of the event. It was obviously significant. I felt people would be interested to see the MM scale to understand where this event falls compared with other quakes, and also to learn that "violent" actually means specific things when discussing quakes.

Was not trying to make fun of you either in a later post. Thanks for providing that info, interesting and informative.

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Based on how folks are describing it, this map looks exactly right. The couple of spots of yellow don't surprise me: 5.9 is pretty good, and the quake was shallow, so I'd expect some hard jolts right near the epicenter.

What impresses me most about this quake is the really large coverage of felt shaking. Like I said above (or in another thread), quakes in CA don't have such wide aerial coverage like this-- except for the really bad ones, they tend to be more localized.

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I presume that's preliminary? I note it's described as "poorly constrained," but have no idea what that means.

It's the 3rd update to the depth I've seen...but they've all said "poorly constrained". First depth was ~4km (can't remember exactly), then 1km, and now 0.1km.

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If you're referring to me-- since I'm the only Californian in this thread (): I'm not making fun of the event. It was obviously significant. I felt people would be interested to see the MM scale to understand where this event falls compared with other quakes, and also to learn that "violent" actually means specific things when discussing quakes.

We would not even be having this convo if it was violent as termed by USGS since many of us would be under rubble. I get the interest in sharing the wealth but there are some things that are predictable in life and one is Californians mocking others earthquake understanding abilities.

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Was not trying to make fun of you either in a later post. Thanks for providing that info, interesting and informative.

You're welcome.

We would not even be having this convo if it was violent as termed by USGS since many of us would be under rubble. I get the interest in sharing the wealth but there are some things that are predictable in life and one is Californians mocking others earthquake understanding abilities.

Who was mocking anyone? Seriously, dude-- relax.

You guys had a significant event and I thought I'd share the stuff that we talk about in CA after quakes. No insult intended. Yikes.

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Based on how folks are describing it, this map looks exactly right. The couple of spots of yellow don't surprise me: 5.9 is pretty good, and the quake was shallow, so I'd expect some hard jolts right near the epicenter.

What impresses me most about this quake is the really large coverage of felt shaking. Like I said above (or in another thread), quakes in CA don't have such wide aerial coverage like this-- except for the really bad ones, they tend to be more localized.

Pretty sure it may be the soil/terrain, if I had to guess, we have "clay" which may transfer disturbance well. I'm talking out of my azz but just is the impression I have.

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Mod seems about right, definitely shaking and rattling going on during it. but nothing fell over, at least in my cube.

Some ceiling fixtures partially fell and a couple of things were tipped over in my cube but nothing worse that that. Pictures fell off the walls at home but no biggie

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