Central U.S. Earthquake Info 120
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."
animals and earthquakes (Score:2, Insightful)
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:Only one moderate quake and an aftershock (Score:2, Insightful)
> 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.
Re:5.2 is not a big quake (Score:3, Insightful)
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.