Anyone think this earthquake might have affected the coal mine disaster?

[icymist]

I've been checking the usgs site lately and this earthquake in West Virginia caught my eye:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsus/Maps/US10/32.42.-85.-75_eqs.php
<snip>
Earthquake List for Map Centered at 37°N, 80°W
Update time = Fri Apr 9 0:00:04 UTC 2010

Here are the earthquakes in the Map Centered at 37°N, 80°W area, most recent at the top.
(Some early events may be obscured by later ones.)
Click on the underlined portion of an earthquake record in the list below for more information.
MAG UTC DATE-TIME
y/m/d h:m:s LAT
deg LON
deg DEPTH
km LOCATION
MAP 3.4 2010/04/04 09:19:14 38.599 -80.916 0.1 15 km ( 9 mi) WSW of Gassaway, WV
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsus/Maps/US10/32.42.-85.-75.php

This happened at 9:19 UTC which, I believe would be 4:19 am on 4/5/2010. It's a small quake at 3.4, but it's only one kilometer down! Not to excuse the Massey corporation who ignored safety in order to make profits, but a weakened mine from a very shallow quake might have added to bringing about this disaster.

[Arctic Dave]

1. If a quake is close enough, then it is in the realm of possibility.

[BrklynLiberal]

2. Yeah. It stopped it from happening sooner.

[Mother Smuckers]

3. Seismic waves can propagate hundreds of miles, so yes it is conceivable.

There probably aren't enough sensors and recorders in that part of the country to yield enough data to confirm or dispute your question/proposal (which is a good one, it seems to me.)

Some earthquakes set up resonances that quite literally bounce all the way round the planet.

[Petrushka]

4. Doubtful . . . though it won't surprise me if Blankenship tries to put that spin on it because . . .

. . . don't we all know, by now, that all coal mine accidents are either the fault of miner or
an act of God? Even Fred Phelps and his "church" says so!

Anyway . . . :eyes:

A google search produced the following link re: "earthquake west virginia mine disaster USGS"

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/04/06/seismic-events-triggered-explosion/

[icymist]

5. Ahh, I made an error in converting UTC time....

Instead of going back a few hours, I went ahead. Thanks for the link, even if it was to Faux, or I wouldn't have caught that. :hi:

[Petrushka]

6. You're welcome!

:hi: