earthquake

[TCO]

Anybody else feel an earthquake?

I'm in ATL, Georgia and felt about 20 seconds of shaking. At first was worried about the house (since it is warped). But it felt like the quakes I'd felt in Cali. Checked the news and they said people felt it all over Georgia and Alabama. There are some newsreports of somthing in Missouri which seems hard to beleive unless it was really substantial.

[Skanky Burns]

It didn't make it to Australia.

Hope everyone is ok.

[TCO]

I haven't heard anything about an epicenter. Maybe it was just minor.

[Sava]

Nothing in IL. Hope everything is okay.

[TCO]

It was in Georgia. It was some kind of wieerd, different quake that is down 30 km in the ground. So it was felt over a wide area, but not that much damage even at the epicenter. Was only a 4.9, but was felt over 7 states in the SE.

[Lincoln]

I felt it in middle Tennessee. Kind of rare for this area.

[Sava]

It's all part of my plan

[Sava]

Small earthquake shakes the South

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) --A light, rare earthquake measuring magnitude 4.9 shook the South in the early morning hours, waking up people from Mississippi to North Carolina, but the tremor failed to inflict significant damage, bleary-eyed residents and officials told CNN.

The epicenter of the tremor was about 37 miles southwest of Chattanooga, Tennessee, along the border of Georgia and Alabama, according to the United States Geological Survey Web site. It struck just before 5 a.m. EDT. The tremor was also felt in southeastern Kentucky, northeastern Mississippi, and the western parts of North and South Carolina, according to the National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colorado.

"We would expect items knocked from the shelves, pictures knocked off the walls, people waking up. We wouldn't expect any casualties," said John Bellini, a U.S.G.S. geophysicist in Golden.

"In California, you get something like this once every month. In the East, it's relatively uncommon, but not unheard of," he said.

Bellini also said there was a magnitude 3.9 earthquake about 50 miles to the north of this one in December, 2001, that was felt in Alabama, Tennessee and Florida.

"This one today was a little larger, felt over quite a wide area," he said.

Beverly Daniel, the acting director of Cherokee County's Emergency Management Agency in Alabama, said there are power outages reported and a few trees down.

"It felt like an explosion. We've got aftershocks," she said.

But no injuries had been reported.

Power outages are being reported around Sand Rock, Alabama, and Lookout Mountain, which spans Alabama and Tennessee, according to police.

"A few trailers shook out their foundations. .. but there are no reports of major damage or injuries," said Sabrina Harris, director of Dekalb County, Alabama's 911 department.

Police in the Atlanta area say they got several calls from residents in the metro region frightened and concerned by shaking and rumbles.

"My body is shaking because it was so frightening," said Susan Martin, a resident of Marietta, an Atlanta suburb. "The shaking of my bed and the shaking of my house woke me out of a dead sleep."

Martin, who lives in what she describes as a sturdy brick house, said she felt two series of rumbles.

"First I thought it was thunder. My house was shaking for 10 or 15 seconds. I was quick to get up and see if it was a tornado. .. I went to the window, but heard no wind and no rain. .. I called 911 and they asked me, are you calling about the earthquake."

"We've had hundreds of calls of people saying the tremors knocked pictures off walls, and a couple said their windows were cracked," said Herbert Dodd, head of Chattooga County Georgia's Emergency services.

Chattooga County is near the Georgia-Alabama border, not far from the epicenter.

According to a Web site affiliated with Georgia Institute of Technology, there appear to be two minor faults in northwest Georgia, the Cartersville and Rome faults; one that runs more or less along the Chattahoochee River, and two more in Central Georgia.

"It's not terribly unusual. The southeast Tennessee seismic zone which actually extends from that area up toward Knoxville is probably the second most active area in the Eastern United States," said Georgia Tech professor, Tim Long, who works in the university's earthquake monitoring lab.

"We have events like this about every 10 to 20 years," he said.

"So far they have not been serious. There's potential for a larger event," Long said.

"It was felt widely. These earthquakes in this area are typically deeper focus. That is they're down 20 to 30 kilometers in the earth's crust. So they're felt over a wide area but not as strongly as some other types of earthquakes," he said.

Long said the building code isn't as severe in the Southeast as it is on the West Coast. He says until around 10 to 15 years ago, there was not a statutory mandate to build to code, but that the buildings constructed since then should be safe.

Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/South/04/...mor/index.html

Boo YA!

[Sava]

"A few trailers shook out their foundations. ..

Sorry, I felt this was funny.

[Wittlich]

Nope. Didn't feel a thing out here in San Francisco. I know, shocking, but true!

[Sava]

Yeah Wittlich...
You guys get these kinds of quakes once a month.

[Spec]

Nothing here in Montreal.

Like we ever have earthquakes...Here, it's almost like a shelter to natural disasters....the worst we had is the ice storm a couple of years ago. Other than that, sqwat.

[SlowwHand]

Originally posted by GP
Anybody else feel an earthquake?

I'm in ATL, Georgia and felt about 20 seconds of shaking. At first was worried about the house (since it is warped).

Fits the owner like a glove, doesn't it?

[Sava]

[Kelso's voice]
BURN!!
[/kelso]

[chequita guevara]

I guess I just slept through it or maybe we didn't feel it at all.

[Sava]

Quakes don't affect commies.

[SpencerH]

We didnt feel a thing and the dogs didnt go crazy.

[TCO]

Originally posted by SlowwHand


Fits the owner like a glove, doesn't it?

Do they make curved jimmy sacks?

[TCO]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
I guess I just slept through it or maybe we didn't feel it at all.

I think FL was too far away. The 7 states:

-Georgia
-Alabama
-Tennesee
-Mississippi
-North Carolina
-South Carolina
-Kentucky

[Dauphin]

4.9 on the R scale?

Thats as big as the one that devastated Dudley last year!

[SlowwHand]

What the HELL is a jimmy sack?

[PLATO]

Originally posted by Lincoln
I felt it in middle Tennessee. Kind of rare for this area.

Lincoln, I'm in Franklin and didn't feel it. Of course it was at 5am and I was sleeping. What part of Middle Tennessee are you in?

Supposedly the epicenter was in Ft. Payne, Alabama.

[TCO]

Originally posted by Big Crunch
4.9 on the R scale?

Thats as big as the one that devastated Dudley last year!

It's not that big. When I felt this it felt like what I felt in San Diego, 150 miles from NorthRidge. (7.0). When you are at the epicenter it is short and violent. Further way it is long and rolling. I was worried that there was some bad damage at the epicenter, but it didn't happen because of how deep the thing was. Well, below the crust.

[Oerdin]

Originally posted by Lincoln
I felt it in middle Tennessee. Kind of rare for this area.

Did you guys know that the largest earthquake to ever hit the United States was centered in Arkansas? That's right in the early 19th century the southern midwest was hit with such a powerful earthquake that the Mississippi River actually reversed its direction of flow and for three days the river flowed south to north instead of the normal north to south.

BTW I've lived in California for just about all of my life and a 4.9 is sissy stuff. Wait until you get a real earthquake.

[TCO]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
What the HELL is a jimmy sack?

rubber

[TCO]

Originally posted by Oerdin


BTW I've lived in California for just about all of my life and a 4.9 is sissy stuff. Wait until you get a real earthquake.

I knew someone would say this sooner or later. The reason it was so low was that the quake was so deep. It was actually a very forceful event as shown by the wide number of states affected. Just the damage at the epicenter was minimal. To me it felt much like Northridge did when i was in SD, CA. Just in this case no damage at the epicenter.

[Sten Sture]

The New Madrid fault system in the Mississippi river valley from Illinois to Arkansas will shake you guys out of your jello molds some day.

The good news for us out here in the west is that we are gradually migrating to Alaska, so we get little quakes all of the time that relieve most of the pressure.

The USGS website has a bunch of earthquake maps and should have the details on your little pansy shake...


click on a square on the map to get the detail on the quake:

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/recenteqs/

[Oerdin]

Originally posted by GP
To me it felt much like Northridge did when i was in SD, CA. Just in this case no damage at the epicenter.

Actually the number is calculated based upon the amount of energy released at the epicenter. Your own distance away from the epicenter (be it vertically or horizontally) decreases the amount of wave energy which reaches your location but the figure (be it 4.9 or 9.0 or 1.0) is based upon the point of origin.

BTW I was in SD during the northridge earthquake as well. Other then a handful of cracks in masonry walls not much damage occurred in SD.

[Sten Sture]

IIRC the geology of the SE USA bedrock mutes earthquake intensity - something like limestone absorbing shock waves...

Northridge was a 6.7? I thought it was stronger than that.

[Sava]

So I guess my hopes of the South breaking off and falling into the Gulf are futile.