hmmm.. the desk is shaking

[Lizzard[MPE]]

i think i just felt an earthquake.. and i like live around Louisville, Ky.. am i insane..

[Greebe]

Nope... there is several faults in the area, most notably (can't remember it's name off the top of my head) that's located in Missouri. That's the one you probably felt (so have I growing up in Ohio, not far from you)

[Lizzard[MPE]]

Moderate Earthquake Hits Midwest
The Associated Press
Jun 18 2002 2:52PM

EVANSVILLE, Ind. (AP) - A moderate earthquake rattled portions of the Midwest and South on Tuesday, but authorities had no immediate reports of damage.
The quake, which struck at 12:37 p.m. CDT, registered a magnitude of 5.0, said John Bellini with the U.S. Geological Survey in Golden, Colo., which tracks earthquakes.

The epicenter was 10 miles northwest of Evansville, Ind., he said.

The quake shook buildings in downtown Evansville and was felt in Indiana as far north as South Bend, about 250 miles away. It also was felt in Illinois, Ohio, Missouri, Kentucky and Tennessee.

``An earthquake of this size can typically crack chimneys, knock things off the shelves, and may crack windows,'' Bellini said. ``We wouldn't expect much more than that at the most.''

Officials received calls from people asking about the tremor.

``Most reported a gently rolling motion,'' said Greg Steiner, technical director of the Center for Earthquake Research and Information at the University of Memphis in Tennessee. ``But up close it was enough to scare people out of buildings and homes.''

Bill Smith, a geophysicist at the Earthquake Information Center, said small earthquakes periodically occur in the Wabash Valley region, but typically are not strong enough to be felt.

``This is much larger than average for the region, but not unprecedented,'' Smith said

The strongest earthquake in the last 100 years in the Wabash Valley region happened on Nov. 9, 1968, in south-central Illinois. It had a magnitude of 5.4 and was felt in 23 states.

06/18/02 14:48 EDT

[MadScot]

Magnitute 5.0! That's nothing. It is like a big truck rolling by. It's the 7-8 range that are scary. The 5s are just a bit of fun.

MadScot

[KvHagedorn]

That's the New Madrid fault you're thinking of, Mike. Way back before there were many people there, they had a whopper.. some estimates put it at 9.0 at the epicenter.

More on this.. http://hsv.com/genlintr/newmadrd/

[Helevitia]

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/recenteqsUS/Maps/US10/32.42.-95.-85.html

[Greebe]

Yeah that's it Chuck!

[Sasq]

Hmmm I live with about 1000 of dem darn things a year. The Japanese scale goes up to 7. (personally I think they just cut off the bottom two numbers 'cause that way they don't have to count so many)

Dan

[MadScot]

magnitude. A number that characterizes the relative size of an earthquake. Magnitude is based on measurement of the maximum motion recorded by a seismograph. Several scales have been defined, but the most commonly used are (1) local magnitude (ML), commonly referred to as "Richter magnitude," (2) surface-wave magnitude (Ms), (3) body-wave magnitude (Mb), and (4) moment magnitude (Mw). Scales 1-3 have limited range and applicability and do not satisfactorily measure the size of the largest earthquakes. The moment magnitude (Mw) scale, based on the concept of seismic moment, is uniformly applicable to all sizes of earthquakes but is more difficult to compute than the other types. All magnitude scales should yield approximately the same value for any given earthquake.

from http://earthquake.usgs.gov/4kids/eqterms.html

MadScot

[MadScot]

Also, the scales are logarithmic, so bigger numbers are much bigger quakes. I just love being around someone feeling their first earthquake. They usually freak!

MadScot

[Dr Mordrid]

Each magnitude number is 10x stronger than the previous one, so a 9 is far more powerful than a 5.

BTW: the New Madrid fault had no less than 3 magnitude 8 earthquakes in the winter of 1811 and thousands of aftershocks. Very few homes survived for a radius of 250 miles from the epicenter.

Damage to structures was recorded in Washington DC and Charlotte NC. The quake was felt strongly in Detroit & New Orleans and church bells rang as far away as Boston Mass., over 1000 miles away.

Dr. Mordrid

[Strahd]

Originally posted by MadScot
Also, the scales are logarithmic, so bigger numbers are much bigger quakes. I just love being around someone feeling their first earthquake. They usually freak!

I would imagine that living in California has pretty much immunized you against 5.0.

[The PIT]

So if you here a ding somewhere the ground is doing a dong.

[Beezer]

Originally posted by Strahd


I would imagine that living in California has pretty much immunized you against 5.0.

Actually, 5's still get most people's attention here. We rarely get any above 5.5

[SteveC]

Near Real Time Earthquake List

http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/bulletin/