 Shake map for Virginia earthquake, US Geological Survey |
Anyone on the East Coast鈥攆rom DC up through New Hampshire, maybe even as far as Canada鈥攖his afternoon experienced what鈥檚 now being classified as a 5.8 magnitude earthquake.
鈥淲hat鈥檚 that shaking?鈥 one of my colleagues asked, as the table where we sat for lunch wobbled slightly.
鈥淢ust be someone shaking her leg,鈥 I responded.
鈥淚t feels like an earthquake,鈥 she remarked. No way, I thought.
Minutes later, a crowd of people gathered on the sidewalk outside our office building, rumbling about a Virginia epicenter and aftershocks up and down the eastern seaboard. It was an earthquake; it happened at 1:51:04 pm.
But the East Coast rarely experiences earthquakes, right?
According to the US Geological Survey (USGS), they occur more than we think鈥攐r feel. People in Virginia experience them once every year or two, in fact. 鈥淭he largest damaging earthquake (magnitude 4.8) in the seismic zone occurred in 1875. Smaller earthquakes that cause little or no damage are felt each year or two,鈥 states the .
What makes East Coast quakes even more unique is the vast ground they touch, compared to those in the West. 鈥淓arthquakes in the central and eastern U.S., although less frequent than in the western U.S., are typically felt over a much broader region. East of the Rockies, an earthquake can be felt over an area as much as ten times larger than a similar magnitude earthquake on the west coast,鈥 states the . It鈥檚 no wonder despite an epicenter hundreds of miles away.
So far, there have been no reports of injury or major damage, .
If you felt the earthquake, let the USGS know . (Even if you didn鈥檛 feel it, you can fill out the form. The USGS says the more information the agency gets for your ZIP code, the more reliable the average intensity assigned to your ZIP will be.)