# These earthquakes are very disturbing..................



## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

We've been having them steadily now for 2 days.
Very unsettling.


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Hope all goes well there.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Where is this? California?


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Recent earthquakes
earthquake.usgs.gov
Time Magnitude Location
3 hours ago 3.3 Greater Los Angeles area, California 
11 hours ago 4.1 Greater Los Angeles area, California 
Yesterday 5.1 Greater Los Angeles area, California

News for recent earthquakes
NPR

5.1 earthquake rattles Southern California; homes damaged
Los Angeles Times ‎- 1 day ago
A magnitude-5.1 earthquake centered in northern Orange County rippled across the Los Angeles Basin

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-51-earthquake-rattles-southern-california-homes-damaged-20140328,0,4932643.story#axzz2xR5OHetU

What is looking good is the diminishing numbers, a larger, then less... the fault letting pressure off bit by bit. [In geological reckoning, this might even be considered as one 5.1 earthquake with subsequent aftershocks.]

Any earthquake you can feel is naturally unsettling, with 5.1 being enough to mildly alarm. If one lives there (I did, in a decade with a great deal of seismic activity after there had been a relatively long quiet period of several decades.)

You try not to dwell upon 'the big one' and get on with it from day to day.


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

clavichorder said:


> Where is this? California?


Yes, the Los Angeles area.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Must be a horrid feeling; hope the problem fades away before too long. Best wishes.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

That's the risk with living in California. A beautiful state, but subject to earthquakes, mudslides and wildfires.
They felt it all the way down by San Diego.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

I forgot the fourth and most dangerous hazard of all, excessive taxes.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Thanks for this thread. I've already learned something I didn't know.

LA has classical music?

I know they have one famous harpsichordist in residence,

Tremor Pinnock.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

hpowders said:


> Thanks for this thread. I've already learned something I didn't know.
> 
> LA has classical music?
> 
> ...


You've forgotten part of the local culture, _Richter's scales_ -- I'd say that is a pretty nitty-gritty degree of how committed that culture is to classical music.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

PetrB said:


> You've forgotten part of the local culture, _Richter's scales_ -- I'd say that is a pretty nitty-gritty degree of how committed that culture is to classical music.


He'd probably score a 10.0; fearsome technique. More than the Hollywood Hills could safely handle.


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

hpowders said:


> Thanks for this thread. I've already learned something I didn't know.
> 
> LA has classical music?
> 
> ...


A lot of classical music in LA.


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

I'm half tempted to trade you snow for quakes. We got 8 inches overnight here in WNY. Really wet, heavy stuff too.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Itullian said:


> A lot of classical music in LA.


I know! You guys have a beautiful performing arts center. Walt Disney concert hall is to die for.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Taggart said:


> Hope all goes well there.


Thanks Taggart. The TV was full of screaming disaster stories, with pictures of...shampoo bottles that had fallen from store shelves. Yawn... We live about 30 miles south of the quakes' epicenter grouping and felt two of them. Nothing unusual.


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

KenOC said:


> Thanks Taggart. The TV was full of screaming disaster stories, with pictures of...shampoo bottles that had fallen from store shelves. Yawn... We live about 30 miles south of the quakes' epicenter grouping and felt two of them. Nothing unusual.


I don't know about you down there, but I've been shaking for 3 days here.
pretty good ones too.
pretty unnerving to me.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

I would be more than unnerved. We once had an earthquake down in Ohio or somewhere and I felt my office chair sway on the 7th floor. Was spooky. We had another one once but I didn't feel it because I was in the basement. That is enough earth quaking for me though.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Total number of Earthquakes in California each year ca. 10,000

Live in another part of the country, it is Tornadoes, yet another part of the country, it is Hurricanes, etc. etc. etc.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Itullian said:


> I don't know about you down there, but I've been shaking for 3 days here.
> pretty good ones too.
> pretty unnerving to me.


Don't mean to minimize your experience. Most earthquakes have primarily local effects -- there's a big different between South Orange County and, say, Carbon Canyon!


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## Tristan (Jan 5, 2013)

My mom was in San Jose during the 1989 earthquake (a 6.9) and felt it pretty strongly--her story of that and the degree to which the house was shaking always freaked me out. She was traumatized by it and didn't really stop being until my sister was born the next year.

Still, the rarity of earthquakes (and the awesomeness of California) keeps me wanting to live here over the disasters in other parts of the U.S.. But I was planning on heading down to L.A. in a week or so and now that's sounding kinda creepy -_-


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Tristan said:


> My mom was in San Jose during the 1989 earthquake (a 6.9) and felt it pretty strongly--her story of that and the degree to which the house was shaking always freaked me out. She was traumatized by it and didn't really stop being until my sister was born the next year.
> 
> Still, the rarity of earthquakes (and the awesomeness of California) keeps me wanting to live here over the disasters in other parts of the U.S.. But I was planning on heading down to L.A. in a week or so and now that's sounding kinda creepy.
> 
> -_-


People who live in California any good length of time do not get cavalier about earthquakes but I would say most get very canny about them, i.e. quickly assessing how strong an earthquake is, and then taking whatever actions are appropriate to their safety. I will say I had one peculiar tick -- when driving on freeways, if there was a traffic jam, I would wait until the cars just ahead were clear of an overpass so I could drive through at normal speed. There is nothing much to be done if you are _on an overpass _

At some point, I do think we all have to realize that "something has our number on it," and go about our lives without being in constant anxiety about the next earthquake, tornado, Hurricane, etc. More people are killed annually in the U.S. in motor vehicle accidents than by any of nature's harsher caprices.


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

Hang on in there Itullian.

I'm always wondering when the big one will blow here in Auckland. We are overdue for another one of these.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

I recall this proportionate analogy about the earth from geology class:

If the earth were the size relative to a medicine ball in the hands of a giant, it would have in that 'human' giant's hands the yield to pressure consistency of a ball of toothpaste. i.e. it is relatively soft....

Granite is porous; continents drift, shift; the magnetic poles drift and shift; the geologic 'process' is ongoing and unending. There have been earthquakes in Manhattan, Chicago (epicenter less than one hundred miles away.) Both cities have many large buildings and multiple floor apartment buildings made of brick with no reinforcing steel, and are in no way built to withstand an earthquake.

The New Madrid fault, "in 1811 and 1812, unleashed a trio of powerful jolts - measuring magnitudes 7.5 to 7.7 - that rattled the central Mississippi River valley. Chimneys fell and boats capsized. Farmland sank and turned into swamps. The death toll is unknown, but experts don't believe there were mass casualties because the region was sparsely populated then." 
The prairie lands were reported to have been _rolling in waves,_ like water in a sea. The quake was felt as far away as Boston, where the motion was enough to set bells in church towers swaying, and they rang.

The North American continent is itself two tectonic plates, divided by the Mississippi River.

The 1692 earthquake in Jamaica left a huge segment of Port Royal under water.

To be able to think and plan ahead long term, and just to get on with things in general, we cozy ourselves with a notion that much of our physical surroundings and our housing "are permanent."


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

The New Madrid fault^ (which for some reason is pronounced New MADrid in these parts) is due to shift again someday. I understand we will feel it strongly in middle Tennessee too. I've always wanted to feel the power of an earthquake, but not at the risk of lives and property. Tornadoes are scary enough, especially if you live a few hundred yards from the siren as I do.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

In the New Madrid quake a couple of centuries ago, population was scarce. Not so today! They say the Mississippi River ran backwards.

The largest earthquake in the US (and the second largest ever recorded) was the Alaska earthquake of 1964, magnitude 9.2. Much of Anchorage was destroyed, and the purely geologic damage was substantial (if you're ever there, visit Earthquake Park). A tidal wave from this quake hit Crescent City in California, due to funneling, and killed a dozen people. The city still has an "Earthquake Bowling Alley" alongside Hwy 101, along with several other such commemorations.

Here's a pic of 4th Avenue in Anchorage after the quake.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Weston said:


> The New Madrid fault^ (which for some reason is pronounced New MADrid in these parts) is due to shift again someday. I understand we will feel it strongly in middle Tennessee too. I've always wanted to feel the power of an earthquake, but not at the risk of lives and property. Tornadoes are scary enough, especially if you live a few hundred yards from the siren as I do.


The _idea_ of these things is always initially a bit exciting, but none of us can purchase a first-row balcony seat and expect safety for the duration of the tornado / Hurricane / Mudslide / Earthquake / Tsunami / Volcanic Eruption shows.

In San Francisco, going up to my workplace in the elevator, with the 11th floor punched in as the first stop, the moment it began to rise it began to shake side to side, getting stronger and stronger as it rose. Any buttons pushed to command it to stop it at a lower floor did not take, and as it rose the shaking became near violent, we were rattling in the elevator shaft. The door did open at the eleventh floor; I and the the two gentlemen with me in the elevator stepped out gingerly, and in front of me, hugging some of the building's central pillars, was the entire bunch of my colleagues from the office, which sat next an outside wall.

That is not an earthquake experience one hopes to have, and certainly, at around magnitude 5.____, perhaps anything much stronger might have been 'less interesting.'

BUT, that quake and that elevator did not have my number on them, and they well could have.

P.s. New MAdrid sounding as it does is similar to Kay-ro (for Cairo) in Southern Illinois


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

Just more of God's wrath for us Left Coasters. Keep clam.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Vaneyes said:


> Just more of God's wrath for us Left Coasters. Keep clam.


Ivar thanks you, from Heaven.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

Vaneyes said:


> Just more of God's wrath for us Left Coasters. Keep clam.


It might be a good idea to stock up on bottled water and canned food while preserving your equanimity, mind you.


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## Guest (Apr 1, 2014)

hpowders said:


> Thanks for this thread. I've already learned something I didn't know. LA has classical music?
> I know they have one famous harpsichordist in residence, *Tremor Pinnock*.


A pretty nifty harpsichord player who can riff(t) on any figured bass!


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## Guest (Apr 1, 2014)

PetrB said:


> You've forgotten part of the local culture, _Richter's scales_ -- I'd say that is a pretty nitty-gritty degree of how committed that culture is to classical music.


Exactly. And I hope that any German-speaking musically-inclined engineers working in nuclear power plants in California won't be rushing to play their _geiges_. [_Lame. Very lame. Ed._]


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

TalkingHead said:


> Exactly. And I hope that any German-speaking musically-inclined engineers working in nuclear power plants in California won't be rushing to play their _geiges_. [_Lame. Very lame. Ed._]


Moan.

California trembles; Jerry Brown fiddles ~ Film at Eleven


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

These earthquakes may be very disturbing, but:

These pretzels are making me very thirsty!


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

KenOC said:


> In the New Madrid quake a couple of centuries ago, population was scarce. Not so today! They say the Mississippi River ran backwards.


Any self-respecting alt-country hipster knows the story.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Uh oh! Big quakes in Chile:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-26846984

Hope all the Pacific coast folks are okay.


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

Blancrocher said:


> It might be a good idea to stock up on bottled water and canned food while preserving your equanimity, mind you.


Jus' so long as I've got my favorite Johnny Cash tunes-- Ring of Fire, and I Walk the Faultline.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

Vaneyes said:


> Jus' so long as I've got my favorite Johnny Cash tunes-- Ring of Fire, and I Walk the Faultline.


Perhaps a film would be in order. Don't let the bad reviews put you off--this one's a masterpiece:

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/escape_from_la/


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

Blancrocher said:


> Perhaps a film would be in order. Don't let the bad reviews put you off--this one's a masterpiece:
> 
> http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/escape_from_la/


No comedy, give me The Road.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

8.2 quake 61 miles off Chile. Tsunami predicted.

Hope everything will be okay in the SA Pacific coast region.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

hpowders said:


> 8.2 quake 61 miles off Chile. Tsunami predicted.
> 
> Hope everything will be okay in the SA Pacific coast region.


It looks like islands will be more at danger, perhaps more towards New Zealand and Hawaii, but the waves won't likely move up due north so far.

Nevertheless, this is really sad, I'm sure a lot of people all around the area are extremely worried about it. I still remember that horrifying Japanese tsunami a few years ago.


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## Krummhorn (Feb 18, 2007)

Having resided in Southern California between the years 1949 t0 1980, these earthquakes were common. We would have white caps in the pool, china in the cabinet would rattle, and then all would stop and life returned to normal.

In other words, as residents, we took them in stride as being part of the 'danger list' of things that deal with California. 
That and the 12 lane parking lot, aka Interstate 5 going through Orange County.

In the Southwestern desert of Arizona, we have the summer Monsoon storms ... deadly lightening striking all over the place, torrential rainfall, winds, etc ... all along with unending daytime temperatures of 110°F temperatures to boot during our 2nd season, Summer.

_We have two seasons in Arizona ... 1) Summer, and 2) Summer :lol:
_
Still, to lots of people these earth events are troublesome and worrisome ... at least the meteorologists and geologists are becoming rapidly better at forecasting new activity, so at least in most cases there's more warning before these disastrous events.

Kh


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