A map of where people felt the earthquake, and why it was a big thing.

[alfredo]

The reason a relatively small quake like Friday's is felt so far away is the bedrock.

Here's an article that explains why.

http://www.kentucky.com/news/state/story/380898.html

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. There is this great little museum in New Madrid, MO

It's right at the edge of the Mississippi river. One of the islands created by the 1812 earthquake is close by.

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

http://www.newmadridmuseum.com/

To experience the New Madrid
earthquake tremors
of 1811-1812
http://www.newmadridmuseum.com/quake.htm

[wolfgirl]

3. Cool!

that was really cool...as long as I'm 500 miles away from an actual quake. I've done tornados so this is close I would care to be!

:hide: :yourock:

[proud2BlibKansan]

9. I don't have IE so I couldn't activate it

What happened?

[alfredo]

4. Very nice. Is that building earthquake proof?

[proud2BlibKansan]

7. I doubt it

It's a very old building.

[alfredo]

13. I think there are ways to retrofit, but then the brick facade will

end up paving the streets.

[HeresyLives]

2. It was felt in Canada

in Kitchener-Waterloo

http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/415921

[alfredo]

5. So the hard bedrock really transmits the shock.

[HeresyLives]

10. Yeah, quite a distance

for it to be felt, so the vibration really travels.

[alfredo]

14. The makeup of the soil has quite a bit to do with it too. I'm

glad I don't live in Louisville. Much of the soil is saturated sand and clay. It will shake like a bowl full of Jello.

[lonestarnot]

6. Barney wasn't a Rubble in Bedrock for nutt'n!

Thanks alfredo!

[roseBudd]

8. I did not feel because I was probably asleep but a vintage condiment shelf on wall clearly

has one of the ceramic condiment drawers shifted about 2 inches and hanging off the edge.

My house sits at the highest point on top of rock in SW OH.

[malaise]

11. One of my friends in Chicago nearly had a heart attack

he was scared out of his wits.

[FirstLight]

12. I rode out the Loma Prieta.... in the Bay 1989

But its understandable that you guys would be more than a little "shaken up" (pun intended) being in a place that is NOT known for earthquakes. Though I wonder if you ever get "used to them" having rode out some 4.5's as I grew up, never prepared me for the :15 second ride of that one!

I can remember being at work. I was at a dental office in a mall, Hayward. the desk was right next to the doors of the mall. As the rumbling started, I thought,
"okay, just a quake, hold on and wait it out..."

then it got stronger, pretty son my office chair was bouncing with me in it!
I dove under the desk and didn't come out for a long time.
The big floodlights in the mall were dropping glass, people running to the doors to get out...which really adds to the fear of the event itself. prety hard core.

the actual aftermath of something like that is the worst part, because its like you slowly realize just the magnitude of it all


I am sure tornados and hurricanes are similarly awe inspiring and horrible at the same time. Sometimes even the mountain blizzards here make me bow down and revere the wonder that is the power of this planet.

[alfredo]

Mountains are not too forgiving. Kentucky, except for the tornadoes,

floods, droughts, insects, pollen, heat and humidity, is quite forgiving.

[alfredo]

17. dupe

[Berry Cool]

22. Midwesterners, and I speak as one, do not recognize earthquakes for what they are at first.

If they feel the ground shake, "earthquake" is the last thought on their minds. They sooner think things like "a large truck must have rumbled by" or, in the Cold War era, "OMG, the Russians finally dropped the bomb on us."

We don't get used to "riding out" small earthquakes, so anything that we can actually feel is "big" to people like us.

A 5 hit northeast Ohio a few weeks after I moved out of the area in '86. My family saved the newspapers for me. Some mention was made that because the quake happened on the same day as the funeral for the Challenger astronaut Judith Resnick in Akron, some people thought they were experiencing some sort of sonic boom created by the jet flyover at her funeral. And yes, some did think it was The Bomb.

I think if a quake of that magnitude hit this area (where I now live again) today, the first thought of most people would be "The terrorists have attacked us."

[Greyhound]

15. I've lived through earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, and hurricanes.

I'll take earthquakes any day.

[coriolis]

16. Same here...they're the easiest to escape from (unless you're next to a mountain)

:shrug:

[Blue_In_AK]

21. I definitely agree with you there...

I've never experienced the flooding, hurricanes, tornados, etc., but I'll take Alaska's shakers any day. Sure, we get a really big one periodically, but not every year, and because we are in a well-known earthquake zone our taller buildings are made to withstand them.

My own house is "flexible," probably not by design, but when we get an earthquake, the house groans and squeaks and makes all kinds of funny noises, but so far at least it's still standing. (Knocking on wood.)

[Uncle Joe]

18. I don't believe structures in this area of the nation are built

to withstand earthquakes so well as they are in California, also the bedrock is harder so it doesn't take as powerful of an earthquake on the Richter Scale to spread out over a larger area.

I'm just wondering how they know this isn't a tremor before a major quake?

[alfredo]

19. They don't know. They don't even know for sure if the fault that moved

is connected to the New Madrid Fault.

[Berry Cool]

23. Well, that's what's scary. We don't know.

No, the buildings here aren't built to be as earthquake proof, yet we know that someday, somehow, New Madrid is likely to pitch a fit, and when it does, it will be felt a long way away because of that hard bedrock.

If there is ever a major earthquake in the Midwest, it just may make earthquake elsewhere look insignificant by comparison in terms of the swath of death and destruction. I hope it doesn't happen during my lifetime, but we have no guarantee of that, any more than New Orleans did that the levees would hold.

[L. Coyote]

20. Numerous brick building in the region built after the New Madrid quake

were not built to withstand earthquakes. Brick collectors will have a field day when this region really rocks.