According to the U.S. Geological Survey , the little town of Mineral , Virginia waswas the epicenter of a 5.9 magnitude seism earlier this afternoon , take a shit today ’s quake at least equal in intensity to Virginia ’s largest earthquake on record , whichthe USGS state hap in Giles County , Virginia in 1897 .
Reports of the seism — which occurred at roughly 1:51 Prime Minister Eastern Standard Time and is said to have lasted between 20 and 30 seconds — and its effects are popping up all along the East Coast , with masses in realm as far and wide as Martha ’s Vineyard , Pittsburgh , and Milwaukee take to chitter en masse to report their feeling the earthquake .
TheUSGS is ask people to inform them if they felt the quake . And the USGS have good reason to take interest in the extent of the tremors — this point of geologic activity , while not unheard of along the East Coast , is extremely rarefied .
What is the likeliness of temblor in Virginia ?
While the USGS ’s seismal fortune map does indicate that the risk for earthquakes in Virginia is somewhat higher than that of other areas along America ’s Eastern Seaboard , when you get aright down to it the chances of an earthquake of this magnitude along the bulk of the U.S. ’s Atlantic coast is relatively rarefied .
Geologically speaking , Virginia — along with much of the rest of the easterly coast of the North American continent — is actually right around the middle of a tectonic plate ( compare this with cities like San Francisco , which rest somewhat much smack splash on the westernmost bound of the North American architectonic home base — see the red along the western coast of the USGS seismic hazard mathematical function ? That ’s what we ’re talking about here ) .
Tectonic plateful , you ’ll recall , are the XII or so tremendous rigid slab of the Earth ’s crust that , when they dislocate and shift along one another in a violent and unexpected fashion , are know to cause major earthquakes . ( Imagevia )
The thing is , the easternmost boundary of the plate on which America ’s East Coast sleep is in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean , and historically speaking tends to shift at the easy tread of 2 - 3 centimeters per class . What ’s more , since Virginia and the rest of the East Coast reside on top of the center of the plate , shape be given to be relatively stable , with large - order of magnitude earthquakes instead tending to touch places like San Francisco , L.A. , and Japan — place that are right on the boundary of a tectonic crustal plate .
Due to its location , Virginia is alternatively prostrate to experience “ intra - plate ” seismicity ( i.e. tectonic effort within a home plate as opposed to at its bound ) like it did today . But intra - plate activity is typically much less noticeable .
So why was today ’s seism so uncharacteristically strong ?
Inan interview with NPR , seismologist John Vidale enjoin that the Earth ’s crust actually has ancient faults in many place , but that “ most of them do n’t move very much … the mystery is really what ’s pushing the fracture to make it move now — and there are a lot of theory . ”
Vidale say one of these theories is that the plate is in the process recovering from the end of the last wintry period , assuage itself of pressure receive while the region was still covered in ice by go up and putting stress on the Earth ’s insolence .
Chrisopher Bailey , chairman of the geology department at William and Mary , tell apart NPR that another account could be that the current movements of the North Atlantic tectonic plate are putting insistency on the same ancient defect mention by Vidale .
According to David Spears , Virginia ’s nation geologist , there are three such fault in Virginia alone .
“ An area of fundamental Virginia , along a stemma that hunt down from Fredericksburg to Gereensboro , N.C. , used to be a shell boundary , ” Spears said . “ Perhaps there ’s some remnant stress in the crust . ”
When was the last time a quake like this hit the Virginia field ?
All this is to say that a 5.9 earthquake in Virginia is gravid news . For a sense of view , consider that just last year the USGS reported a 3.6 magnitude Earthquake in Montgomery County , Maryland — which , like the town of Mineral , Virginia , is very nigh to the D.C. area . The USGS classified last year ’s Montgomery County earthquake as a “ significant earthquake . ” At the time , Mike Blanpied provided this sum-up of the historical seismicity of the Maryland / Virginia region , prepared by the USGS National Earthquake Information Center ( NEIC ):
Earthquakes in Maryland and Northern Virginia are rare but not unprecedented . In the past four decades , there have been about a XII order of magnitude 2.0 and high earthquakes within 100 kilometer of this late temblor . The largest earthquake on phonograph record in Virginia is a order of magnitude 5.6 in Giles County on May 31 , 1897 . More late in the unsubtle field , a magnitude 4.1 earthquake struck Lancaster County , Pennsylvania on April 22 , 1984 . This Pennsylvania earthquake caused flimsy damage at Conestoga , Lampeter , Mt Nebo and New Providence and was felt from West Virginia to Connecticut . A serial of low , feel earthquakes sweep March to July 1993 come about near Columbia , Maryland , within 33 km ( 20 miles ) of the July 16 , 2010 earthquake . The largest in this series was a order of magnitude 2.7 in March , 1993 . On May 5 , 2003 a magnitude 3.9 event strike near Cartersville , Virginia about midway between Charlottesville and Richmond . That quake was felt wide in key Virginia and in parts of Maryland . The most recent earthquake in this region was a magnitude 2.0 outcome on May 6 , 2008 near Annandale , Virginia .
notice : the “ largest seism on record ” reported in this official USGS financial statement from 2010 is not misreported ; the sum-up states the largest quake on record in Virginia as being 5.6 in Giles County , whilethe USGS website grade the Giles County earthquake at 5.9 .
Also listedhereis a catalogue ( too large to include here ) of Virginia ’s 15 heavy earthquake between the long time 1774 and present day . Again — today ’s temblor ranks at least as high as the highest magnitude quake on this list .
Why is a 5.9 magnitude quake in VA worse than a 5.9 magnitude seism in CA , and how will base be affect ?
A 5.9 order of magnitude temblor might not seem like much to citizenry from the Nation ’s West Coast , who are more wonted to quake of similar order of magnitude — but geologist say that a 5.9 quake in New England is decidedly different from a 5.9 quake along the Pacific Coast .
According to the USGS , seism in the Eastern U.S. lean to be feel over a much broader range of land , with quakes in region east of the Rockies sometimes affecting areas as much as ten clip larger than an earthquake of like order of magnitude on the West Coast . The USGS feel :
A order of magnitude 4.0 eastern U.S. quake typically can be felt at many places as far as 100 km ( 60 mile ) from where it go on , and it infrequently make damage near its rootage . A order of magnitude 5.5 eastern U.S. quake usually can be felt as far as 500 klick ( 300 statute mile ) from where it occurred , and sometimes causes damage as far aside as 40 km ( 25 mi ) .
The far - reach out effects of an quake with an epicenter in Virginia therefore have serious logical implication for places nearby ( like Washington , D.C. ) with historic monuments , and other buildings not necessarily design for the frequency of quakes see in other persona of the country .
speak to the tendency for East Coast quakes to feign a broad area , and the likely impingement of a seism as big as today ’s on historic buildings , seismologist Graham Kent — over at The Washington Post’sLive Seismologist Chat — tell that as you move closer to the epicenter of a quake like today ’s , the potential affect on building ’ morphologic wholeness obviously increases . He keep on :
There will be citizenry inspecting various buildings . I suppose the most authoritative detail in that regard , is that the Earth ’s crust is a lot colder there , so energy travels much further without being break up . Even though it ’s a 5.9 , it ’s a lot bigger spate than a 5.9 would be in California or Nevada . You might see equipment casualty further away from the epicentre than you might expect .
But what variety of substructure does the East Coast have in place to accommodate for earthquakes ? How will be infrastructure be affected ? So far , limited damage has been report from the quake , and is believed to be limited primarily to the quake ’s epicentre in Virginia .
The state is home plate to a nuclear major power plant , place just air mile from the seism ’s epicentre , that was immediately taken offline ( there have been no reports of damage to the force plant ) ; Amtrak trains were arrest ; and cellphone service failed to rest afloat as web became bogged down by an excess of phone calls .
earth scienceEarthquakesGeologySciencevirginia
Daily Newsletter
Get the best tech , science , and polish news in your inbox daily .
News from the future , deport to your nowadays .
Please select your desired newssheet and submit your email to elevate your inbox .
You May Also Like
