Earthquake in Maine

[Ted S.]

I just got shook in my living room.

How are the boys doing up in Maine?

http://live.boston.com/Event/45_eart...rrowhead_Maine

[Bluewoodrock]

Yeah it was a good jolt up this way, nothing fell over yet. I was a little nervous in my unreinforced 100 year old brick building.

[mike maines]

Felt like a truck hit the house next door, or a gas explosion nearby (they've been doing a lot of gas work around here lately), or our furnace blew up (except we don't have a furnace). I've been through a few minor earthquakes but this was just one jolt, different than the jiggly shaking I've felt before. Nothing fell off the shelves or anything like that.

[kfc510]

I've been through a few minor earthquakes but this was just one jolt, different than the jiggly shaking I've felt before. Nothing fell off the shelves or anything like that.

When you're close to the epicenter you just feel the jolt; the fracture or slippage of plate material. That jolt of energy creates a ripple effect in the earth's surface, which is what causes the shaking. The further away from the epicenter, the less of the jolt but the more of the shaking you feel.

People in Santa Cruz commonly described the Loma Prieta quake as "a bomb going off", but in San Francisco it was a back-and-forth lurching.
kevin

[mike maines]

That makes sense, Kevin. The epicenter was about 20 miles from my house. The northeast is supposedly due for a major earthquake sometime this millenium, I'm glad this wasn't it. There are some funny Facebook posts going around including this one.

[Dutchman]

I didn't feel a thing, I was driving home when it happened.

This is another funny one that's been around.

[kfc510]

Of course, a 7 is 1000x stronger than what you all felt. Mull that over...
k

[mike maines]

Yeah, and the one that knocked out the Fukushima plant was a 9.0, 100 times stronger than that. Does it really FEEL 1000 or 100000 times stronger, or is that just the force released underground?

[Rick Hoge]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/n...drill/1636445/

[Dancing Dan]

Talked to a friend a few miles from the epicenter. He said the noise was deafening. I too thought it was either a plane crashing or my furnace blowing. The closes sensory experience I can come up with is having a subway approach a station. Pretty wild.

[Dick Seibert]

Dan:

You better forget all about those "pretty good houses" and start building "really good houses", houses that can withstand earthquakes. If you want to repatriate me I'll come back and show you how, on second thought it's cold back there, and shoveling coal out of the coal chute into the furnace was no fun, I remember well!

[MarkMc]

It took about 5.5 hrs for the shock wave to reach the Pacific... unless it was Dicks fault that the defender of Cup flippeth over.

[Rick Hoge]

tower-turret-falling2.jpgWe had a 5.6 near me about a year ago about 60 miles away. This was after several months of 3 to 4+ magnitude quakes which I never felt or was aware of. During the 5.6 one I first noticed what sounded like loud thunder and looked outside....it wasn't thunder as it continued for a while....and then I started to feel it in the chair I was sitting in and looked at the picture frames on my walls and they almost fell off and were all out of line when it ended.

I didn't suffer any damage but there was widespread damage closer to the epicenter. I've never experienced anything like it....it was almost surreal, very spooky.....and this was in Oklahoma!

[kfc510]

Yeah, and the one that knocked out the Fukushima plant was a 9.0, 100 times stronger than that. Does it really FEEL 1000 or 100000 times stronger, or is that just the force released underground?

It gets confusing. Richter is supposed to measure shaking, but they use Moment Magnitude Scale a lot nowadays too, which is based on energy released. They're supposed to be essentially the same for moderate quakes.

The same quake will cause different shaking depending on soil type too, a building on fill in the back bay will move more than one on beacon hill.

Here's the liquefaction map for Alameda County.
http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2002/of02-29...96_2liq-sg.pdf
k

[mike maines]

Here's the liquefaction map for Alameda County.
http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2002/of02-29...96_2liq-sg.pdf
k

Whoa. I love the bay area, but I like being on solid ground.