Earthquake Reported in Southeast Ohio

[sabra]

Source: WSAZ

GALLIA COUNTY, Ohio (WSAZ) -- The U.S. Geological Survey reports that a 3.4 magnitude earthquake hit in southeast Ohio Friday morning.

WSAZ.com has received dozens of breaking news reports via web, e-mail, and phone from people in and around Gallia and Jackson counties in Ohio who felt the quake.

According to the USGS Website, a 3.4 magnitude earthquake has been reported about five miles northwest of Oak Hill, Ohio. It appears to have centered between Oak Hill and Jackson. According to government officials, the earthquake centered about 3 miles underground.

The earthquake was first reported at 9:42 a.m. Friday.

Residents living in and around Gallia County have called to report they felt the ground shake, as well as some office and apartment buildings.

Read more: http://www.wsaz.com/home/headlines/43618537.html

[vaberella]

1. Ohio gets earthquakes? n/t

[Xithras]

4. Earthquakes happen everywhere. Here's an east coast quake map

[vaberella]

11. Wow..I'm surprised...

It's like I know about plate tectonics...but if you don't see where the sites are you never really put them together. Wow..thanks for this.

Tennessee and Kentucky are fucked.

[goclark]

24. I was in Michigan and felt an earthquake

Since I'm from CA, everyone in the room started laughing when I told them the shaking was an earthquake.

The next day, when they read the Newspaper, I had the last laugh.

It shook the huge building.

[Occulus]

30. That's the New Madrid fault line

Wiki

If that thing were to "go", it would devastate that entire region. It's my understanding that a major quake on that line is what once caused the Mississippi River to flow backward for a time.

It's a fairly major fault, as the map shows. Most of the quakes along there are pretty minor, but every once in a while.....

[merh]

33. That fault line is the reason I have earthquake insurance

after Katrina I decided to get all the insurance offered.

[NutmegYankee]

36. Earthquakes are more common at fault lines, but can happen elsewhere.

You think about all the different layers of rock laid down over the eons, the formation of mountains, etc, and there are cracks and stress that gets released from time to time right in the middle of a continental plate. In addition, the North American plate is rising roughly a centimeter per year in height. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-glacial_rebound

[SkyDaddy7]

5. I think...

I read between St. Louis & Memphis is where the most powerful earthquakes in America take place...And we are well overdue for one. 1811 & 1812 there were +9 on the Richter Scale and these quakes were so powerful they caused "Sand Blows" or huge sand geysers. Has anyone heard of this?

[enid602]

6. New Madrid

It was on the New Madrid fault. Toppled monuments and marble buildings being built in the new District of Columbia, and caused much damage in NYC, although it was still a small town. It´s supposed to blow every 250 years or so. New York has plenty of unreinforced masonry buildings, and most buildings are built adjacent to each other, so there´s no room for sway. No floating foundations either. Much of lower Manhattan is built on land reclaimed from the sea, which is always the first to go.

[SkyDaddy7]

15. YES!

New Madrid Fault! Thanks!! Scary stuff!

[Baby Snooks]

16. Supposedly the most dangerous fault line in the country...

I forget the scientific explanation but the problem is the "magnification" of the shock wave as it spreads outward - it has to do with the topography and underlying strata as I believe it is called, particularly to the east of the fault line which runs southwest/northeast through Arkansas and Missouri and may actually run further into New England. It is possible we have "plates" within the United States. There is still a lot we don't know about plate tectonics. If you drive in Missouri along the fault line you can see the "uplift" in the topography. The quakes of 1811 and 1812, the major one occurring in 1812, were felt everywhere east of the Rocky Mountains. But felt more strongly to the east of the Mississippi.

Most of the larger cities to the east of the Mississippi are in danger if there is another 9+ quake on the New Madrid. Including New York. The buildings in most of these cities are old and were not built to withstand a significant earthquake of 6 or higher on the Richter scale.

They didn't have measurements back then. I think I read somewhere that the estimate based on damage is that some cities on the East Coast experienced the equivalent of a 6-7 earthquake on the Richter scale.

Earthquakes are very common in this country. It seems they are more prevalent simply because of the internet. Before the internet we only heard about earthquakes if they were major. It has to do with plate tectonics which in turn affect the connecting faults. The San Andreas may or may not be an actual plate fault. The New Madrid may or may not be an actual plate fault. But both have the potential of a catastrophic earthquake. The New Madrid more than the San Andreas.

Unfortunately earthquake prediction has not been very successful. Some of the really massive ones have occured with absolutely no preceding "swarms" and in fact some believe the "swarms" may indicate simply that pressure on the fault is being relieved so if a large earthquake does follow, it will not be catastrophic.

The only thing anyone knows is that historically speaking, both the San Andreas and the New Madrid are overdue for a major earthquake. And both may produce a catastrophic earthquake within the next 10-50 years depending on whose research you are looking at. And yet they may not produce another catastrophic earthquake for another 100-500 years.

We will know when it happens.

[Odin2005]

26. New Madrid is an very old fault that was reactivated by the mass of the ice sheets IIRC.

Ice sheets depress the land under them and the land around the ice sheet rises to compensate, then when the ice melts the land readjusts back, and this can reactivate old, dead faults.

[XemaSab]

28. Isostatic rebound

:)

[bushmeister0]

8. And the Mississippi River flowed in the opposite direction.

[SkyDaddy7]

19. I do remember reading that as well!

If that happens today the destruction would be like nothing we have ever seen in America! Next to Yellowstone erupting I don't think anything else could be as destructive. Nothing is built for earthquakes along the New Madrid, right? I know they talk about the BIG ONE that will hit LA could be very bad. Earthquakes are freaky as you never know when they will come.

I felt a small one when I was stationed at Vandenberg AFB in California...45 min north of Santa Barbara. Never felt a one that did any damage. I know I would not like it if I did but there is that odd want to actually experience one. Not much chance of that now that I am in Atlanta, Georgia.

[DKRC]

34. Atlanta's well within the range

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Madrid_Seismic_Zone



Comparison: the 1895 Charleston, Missouri, earthquake in the New Madrid seismic zone with the 1994 Northridge, California, earthquake. Red indicates area of structural damage, yellow indicates area where shaking was felt.
Source: http://quake.wr.usgs.gov/prepare/factsheets/NewMadrid/

Probability

The probability of magnitude 6.0 or greater in the near future is considered significant; a 90% chance of such an earthquake by 2040 has been given. In the June 23, 2005, issue of the journal Nature, the odds of another 8.0 event within 50 years were estimated to be between 7 and 10 percent.<8>

[SkyDaddy7]

35. YIKES!

WOW...I had no idea! Thanks for warning me I will have to check out the info you posted!

Thank-you!

[DKRC]

37. YIKES is right!

I grew up in N AL & had never heard about this either.

And you're more than welcome.

[vaberella]

12. I saw that in the map given above.

Poor Kentucky/Tennessee.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

14. New Madrid MO

experiences minor earthquakes every day. Its supposed to have a major eruption ca 2012-13, 200 years since the last one. Also on that map you see a lot of quakes between Illinois and Indiana, on the Lawrenceville fault--went through one of them about the same magnitude as the one in Ohio.

Wonder what fault line the Ohio quake was on?

[rainbow4321]

29. Here's Earthquake Center's website...Alabama, Pennsylvania both had recent quakes

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsus/


Interesting map to look at every so often. While there are the very much expected ones on the West Coast, AK, and Hawaii, you'll see them also pop up in the most unusal places throughout the US. Keep clicking on the little blue/yellow boxes to get the local info (where it happened, time, distance from surrounding cities)


I know we had one in North Texas a few months ago, also.

[vaberella]

39. I've been dumb to earthquakes. It makes me want to get that disaster radio advertised in NYC. n/t

[Auggie]

2. Who knew there was a fault there...

[melm00se]

7. fault lines aren't always visible

nor where people expect them to be.

The New Madrid fault line is one such example but when that one cut loose it rang church bells as far away as Boston. (that's the large red cluster near st louis in post #4)

Fault lines in Ohio are, for most intents and purposes, "buried" faults and invisible to a surface observer. IIRC there have been less than 20 damaging earthquakes in the last 200 years in Ohio

(thanks Fred Krop, geology professor at my 1st college)

[Auggie]

13. I knew there have been earth movements along Lake Erie

but never that far south. It amazes me how many "new" faults pop up in California too -- we have one in Wine Country, a few miles from us, that's been moving with regularity. The San Andreas and Hayward get all the press, but it seems most of California is resting on ground akin to that of shattered glass.

[AwakeAtLast]

20. I think it's connected to the West Salem, IL quake a year ago

West Salem happens to be where I grew up and my parents still live there. I've read a few articles since then. There have been some scientists researching and some of what I read is leaning to an unknown fault line which is deeply buried, up to 10 miles underground. That's why the earthquakes are rather minor. For now anyway. :scared:

[mikelgb]

3. We had two here yesterday in so cal... but no news there

[sutz12]

9. 3.4? Hell, the UPS truck shakes the ground that much.

:shrug:

[depakid]

38. The nature of the ground magnifies the shaking

which is one of the things that make quakes in that area especially destructive.

[Forkboy]

10. A small one was reported in NH yesterday as well.

The Earth is restless this week.

[Tab]

44. Reported publicly, maybe

but it actually occurred on the 15th. It was only 2.1, epicenter was Tilton (just below the Lakes Region).

I've lived in New Hampshire for nearly 20 years now, and only felt one - back around 2002, I think. At the time I lived about 20 miles north of Tilton (in the Lakes Region itself). My whole house swayed, and I was thinking that that was one hell of a wind (I'm not conditioned to think "earthquake" up here). My son felt it as well, and wanted to know what it was, and I said it was one heck of a wind. It wasn't until a few hours later that I learned it was an earthquake and, if I had thought about it, my house at the time was this huge 6000 sq ft brick thing - ain't no wind pushing that around. But, as I said, I don't normally think in those terms up here. If I recall correctly, this one was actually centered somewhere in Lake Champlain off of Burlington, VT.

I've been through two in California that I felt, one of which didn't do any damage other than knock stuff off shelves (I was just south of San Francisco) but walking down the hotel corridor for about 10 or 20 seconds it was nearly impossible to walk straight.

They are scary things - those and tornadoes, but even tornadoes you roughly know when it's "tornado conditions". Hurricanes, lots of warnings. Earthquakes - no warning time that's going to do you any good. Poof, gone!

[alfredo]

17. The I 75 bridge over the Kentucky river straddles a fault line.

Think of that as you transverse that bridge. Fault lines head south from Maysville to Lexington. One of our shopping malls is built on a fault line.

The river here crosses the Cincinnati anticline near its apex This broad dome shaped arch extending across central Kentucky has been so beveled by erosion that its structure has no apparent effect upon the surface See Verhoeff The Kentucky Mountains p 14 Note A p 17 Note A From Clark County the river flows up the arch following a transverse fault Kentucky anticlinal to the crest at the mouth of Dix Diver Highbridge and from that point descends the western slope by other faults Frankfort Fault Zone which in their southern extension define the course of the latter stream From a point just below Frankfort to Camp Nelson at Hickman Creek Jessamine County the Highbridge limestone the oldest formation in Kentucky forms the walls of the river gorge This is a very resistant cliff making rock and here the gorge is generally but little wider than the stream Further upstream the fault in places exposes the Highbridge limestone on one side and on the other more easily eroded calcareous shales and sandstones Eden Maysville Winchester formations and differential erosion results On the one side of the fault the cliffs are so steep that it is impossible to ascend them on the other side fields of corn extend down the gently sloping walls to the flood plain of the river This change from one type of valley to the other is repeated several times as the river meanders back and forth across the fault line Matson Water Resources of the Bluegrass Region pp 26 38 Kentucky Geological Survey Series IV Vol I pp 446 465 9



They reinforced the bridge recently by adding the center column.

[muryan]

18. Noticed it here in SW OH

Was in the IT building at Miami University from 930-1030, they got a call from the geology department telling them we just had a quake. Only felt a minor vibration in my chair, thought it was my phone ringing on silent at first.

Living in Ohio all my life I've only ever felt 2 quakes, both of them happening within the past 14 months or so. Kind of neat when its the small-nobody-gets-hurt quakes.

[Ohio Joe]

21. I didn't feel it here in Columbus

This is the first I heard about it.

[road2000]

22. Did not notice anything in Cincinnati, either. n/t

[madmom]

23. WOW! My daughter is studying geology down there and they were supposed to

go out this morning and do some field work. Wonder if they felt it and what they were thinking when it happened. Can't wait to talk with her now.

[DearAbby]

25. Didn't I read recently here on DU

Someone in Alabama felt an earthquake in the early hours..last week?
I keep thinking NEW MADRID.

Off to look that up...

[defendandprotect]

27. Global Warming will also bring increased EARTHQUAKES . . .

among other things--!!!

[truthisfreedom]

31. Huh?

Where did you hear this?

[defendandprotect]

32. Well, I think it's also in the Pentagon's "warning" to Bush . . . but

the info is generally around.

El Nino and La Nina are part of Global Warming ---

the California wind shift --

increased hurricane severity --

it will also bring increased cyclones, tornadoes --



Here's another interesting one from the NY Times back about 15 years now, I guess . . .

"The dams and reservoirs our Army Corps of Engineers built over the past 50 years

are impacting the rotation of the earth."

[EstimatedProphet]

41. The National Enqirer.

[mr11]

43. LOL...that Bush pic is hilarious

[asthmaticeog]

42. Don't be silly, weather doesn't cause earthquakes, secret government experiments do. Also, wizards.

[Blandocyte]

40. Oh Noes

it's the end of the world and stuff.