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5.8 Earthquake Aug 23, 2011


Kmlwx
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He is at the EOC talking to the President.

I stopped posting here because of dumbass posts like this one. Do I make fun of your pictures or what you do for a living? Nope, even if I thought they sucked, I would never make fun of you about it. Grow up a little!

Cause whats really fookin funny is when you were trying to make outgoing calls on jammed lines, I was having no problem calling my family in MS to tell them we were ok because I get priority service though GETS and Sat phones in the EOC. A perk that I would gladly extend to anyone here if they needed to know how family was if people werent so damn ugly. So by all means, keep bashing for no reason what so ever.

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There have been two aftershocks of 2.8 and 2.2 respectively. I would think that might be what it amounts to. Don't think we'll be seeing anything close to the initial like we see after large earthquakes in CA or other major parts of the world. You do have to wonder though if this built pressure up anywhere else. :P

There's a theory that this, combined with the quakes in Colorado today is going to put pressure in the middle...New Madrid, MO

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The director of the USGS said it's possible the 5.8 was not the main event but the foreshock.

Minutes after the quake, the director of the USGS, Marcia McNutt -- who

watched objects falling from the shelves in her office -- cautioned that the

shaking might not be over.

"What the concern is, of course, is that this is a foreshock. If it's a

foreshock, then the worst is yet to come," McNutt told The Washington Post.

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The director of the USGS said it's possible the 5.8 was not the main event but the foreshock.

it's always a possibility.. i doubt that's what his main takeway is, but it's good for a paper

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There's a theory that this, combined with the quakes in Colorado today is going to put pressure in the middle...New Madrid, MO

EarthSky interviews a geophysicist about the August 22 and 23 earthquakes in Colorado and the U.S. eastern seaboard.

Just before midnight on August 22, a 5.3 magnitude earthquake struck southern Colorado. It was the largest earthquake in that region since 1973. Half a day later – on August 23, a 5.9 magnitude earthquake struck the U.S. eastern seaboard. It was the largest earthquake Virginia seismic region since 1897. EarthSky’s Beth Lebwohl spoke to Rafael Abreu, a geophysicsist with the National Earthquake Information Center of the USGS about these two relatively large U.S. earthquakes coming so close together.

Is the August 23 in Virginia related to the August 22 quake in Colorado?

At this point, we don’t think they are related. Basically, the earthquake in Colorado happened in an area which had pretty significant seismic activity in the past. The quake in Virginia was rather unusual. The possibility of earthquakes occurring in the areas always exists, though.

In other words, there is is no such thing as an aseismic area – an area without seismic activity. Virginia does not lie in in area close to a tectonic boundary, but that doesn’t rule out the possibility of Virginia having a 5.9 magnitude earthquake

Why did Virginia (and the East Coast) experience an earthquake then?

We don’t know. Seismology is a young science. We’ve got only 50 years of hi-tech information. And this earthquake is probably several several million years in the making – before humans were walking on the Earth! There were several millions years of tectonic stresses being accumulated in minor cracks and faults near the U.S. eastern seaboard, and at some point, these faults are going to give way. And in my scientific opinion that is likely the case for Virginia quake.

colorado_virginia_earthquakes_590.jpgImage Credit: USGS

Earthquakes often happen in series. The 5.3 Colorado quake was one of eight that happened yesterday. Is the Virginia quake a foreshock? Will there be others?

In the case of the Virgnia quake, we can definitely expect more aftershocks. Earthquakes of this magnitude do generate aftershock sequences. Very likely possibility. There could be earthquakes in magnitude 5 range. We could see those.

As for this earthquake being a precursor…we don’t know. For example, the big Japan earthquake earlier this year had a precursor quake of 7.2 magnitude a couple days before the 9.2 big one happened. But at the time the 7.2 occurred, we didn’t know that it was a foreshock. In the Pacific area, earthquakes are common.

Could a really big earthquake – say, a magnitude 8 – hit U.S. eastern seaboard, in the same way that big earthquakes might hit Los Angeles or San Francisco?

Well, we’re not talking about the same kind of seismic hazard. Because of the San Andreas fault system in California, we can expect large earthquakes. We know right away there’s a pretty big seismic hazard potential in California. But on the U.S. eastern seaboard, where there’s no nearby, clear tectonic boundary, we would not expect to see as many or as large earthquakes as we see in California. We see this event and say, “Wow!”

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I stopped posting here because of dumbass posts like this one. Do I make fun of your pictures or what you do for a living? Nope, even if I thought they sucked, I would never make fun of you about it. Grow up a little!

Cause whats really fookin funny is when you were trying to make outgoing calls on jammed lines, I was having no problem calling my family in MS to tell them we were ok because I get priority service though GETS and Sat phones in the EOC. A perk that I would gladly extend to anyone here if they needed to know how family was if people werent so damn ugly. So by all means, keep bashing for no reason what so ever.

I am sorry if you got upset, I was joking.

Cell and landline service were both down for a while here.

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Yeah, not likely.. On another note, in the realm of things happening in 3'sHurricane - CheckEarthquake - CheckWhat next?Asteroid into the Bay?  <img src='http://208.71.34.143/public/style_emoticons/default/popcorn.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':popcorn:' />
Tehcncally earthquake would be first, hurricane second if it doesn't fish... Gotta wait a few more days for that.
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from the snippet in the WaPo, I suspect she was taken out of context. I know her and she's not a hypemeister.

yeah.. sounds about right. they are definitely good about pulling the scarebytes out to use.

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Metro wasn't bad. I think a lot of ppl went home early.

Most powerful city in the world and can't handle a 5.8 quake...pretty damn sad if you ask me. God help us all if we ever get something along the lines of a 7.0....massive damage with our crappy construction.

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Most powerful city in the world and can't handle a 5.8 quake...pretty damn sad if you ask me. God help us all if we ever get something along the lines of a 7.0....massive damage with our crappy construction.

To be fair - a 5.8 is rare here. Very rare.

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huh? the city is still functioning, the power is on, buildings are standing, people are getting home OK.

Meh.....many federal agencies let folks leave early, some schools closed already closed for tomorrow, people are sending pics of over turned trash cans to local news stations, local news stations are cutting in with special coverage of the big quake, etc. etc. I wasn't trying to say that DC is not functional...it was more directed towards the response of the pansies that live in this area.

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Most powerful city in the world and can't handle a 5.8 quake...pretty damn sad if you ask me. God help us all if we ever get something along the lines of a 7.0....massive damage with our crappy construction.

It caused more commotion than anything else. We have almost no seismic along the east coast. A 7.0 would level buildings because our codes don't require buildings to be earthquake resistant.

Saying we can't handle it isn't really a fair statement. Atlanta can't handle a heavy snowfall and Chicago can't handle a serious heatwave. But they have no problem the other way around.

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Meh.....many federal agencies let folks leave early, some schools closed already closed for tomorrow, people are sending pics of over turned trash cans to local news stations, local news stations are cutting in with special coverage of the big quake, etc. etc. I wasn't trying to say that DC is not functional...it was more directed towards the response of the pansies that live in this area.

We do freak out easily as a region but I don't think there has been too much here. This wasn't far off being a much bigger deal.

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