Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On!

[PPI Tracy]

Did you feel it?  I did!!   :o

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/dyfi/

[PPI Karl]

By golly, you know, I think I did! 

[PPI Brian]

No I usually don't feel the small quakes that far away. That's a shame, because I actually enjoy small quakes up to about magnitude 4.5. They're just strong enough to get your attention but not strong enough to cause any damage. They're very humbling, and makes all my problems seem very small and insignificant in the bigger picture.  

On a related note, the fault that produced this quake passes way east of us in the desert, so most of the shock waves are probably dampened by all the mountains between OC and us. I do remember an earthquake on that fault line in 1968 -- They called it the Borrego Mountain earthquake, and it registered a magnitude 6.8 on the Richter Scale. As a 7 year old kid, it rocked my world baby.    It was stronger than the 7.2 Baja California quake on Easter Sunday 2012 because it was a heck of a lot closer. I remember both of them causing the ground to do the "rubber pencil".

[PPI Tracy]

No I usually don't feel the small quakes that far away. That's a shame, because I actually enjoy small quakes up to about magnitude 4.5.

ENOY?  ENNNNJOY?!?!?!  You ENJOY the "small quakes"?!   :o :o :o :o :o

I'm going to pretend like I didn't read that.  (they TERRIFY ME)

[PPI Brian]

No I usually don't feel the small quakes that far away. That's a shame, because I actually enjoy small quakes up to about magnitude 4.5.

ENOY?  ENNNNJOY?!?!?!  You ENJOY the "small quakes"?!   :o :o :o :o :o

I'm going to pretend like I didn't read that.  (they TERRIFY ME)

LOL! Yes, I do actually enjoy them. They're frightening but they're also thrilling. The ground moves and you suddenly realize that we are all very small life forms on a very large planet. Kind of puts everything in perspective. And they're usually over before you realize what happened. Boom. They're done.    There's no reason to be afraid -- provided nothing nearby falls on you. Look how well the Japanese people in the video below rode out the big one on March 14, 2011. I'm impressed by the fact that nobody is screaming, and once the shaking stops, they calmly exit the train station.

http://www.youtube.com/v/8jTx9VVw3c0

[PPI Karl]

How y'all doin'?  You couldn't have missed that one at 12:30 p.m. today (unless you were driving, maybe).  5.3 magnitude followed almost immediately by another 5.4.  Epicenter:  Brawley, California.  There have been smaller quakes and shocks originating from Brawley for the past several hours, and I suspect there will be aftershocks galore.  (I'm feeling one right now, actually.   )

[PPI Brian]

I missed it. I was driving at the time. I'm kind of bummed, because I enjoy little rollers. Looks like quite a swarm of small quakes going on in Imperial Valley. Hopefully they are the stress relieving variety of quakes and not a sign of a bigger one looming on the horizon. The USGS said we should be prepared for a larger quake sometime before Tuesday night.

[PPI Karl]

They continued for the next thirty or so hours.  They're referring to them as an anomalous "swarm" of earthquakes.  They've got "fracking" written all over them, I think. 

[PPI Brian]

I agree. But then again, the Brawley area is in the middle of the Gulf of California Rift Zone. The Imperial Valley is being slowly torn apart. Have you seen the video simulation of the California Shake Out? Siesmologists predict the hypothetical "Big One" - a magnitude 7.8 or greater - will start in Imperial Valley and cause the the San Andreas fault zone to rupture all the way to Los Angeles -- over 300 miles. This predicted scenario actually happened in northern California during the Great San Francisco quake of 1906 (296 miles) and geologic evidence suggests it has happened before on the southern San Andreas in the past. Siesmologists now believe the southern San Andreas is capable of producing a magnitude 8.1 or larger quake. Thankfully such events are extremely rare. The last large quake produced by the southern San Andreas fault system happened over 300 hundred years ago.

This video shows a color representation of the shock waves that corrolate to the anticipated intensity of ground movement from such an event. It's absolutely amazing to see how the shock waves travel as the fault ruptures in this simulation. Thank goodness for our mountains -- they would  protect San Diego from the worst of the shaking. But the damage to southern California's infrastructure along the southern San Andreas fault would be catastophic.  

http://www.youtube.com/v/eCNC6ZRTAnY

[PPI Tracy]

Do they have earthquakes on the moon?   

[PPI Brian]

You may or may not find comfort in the answer. 

[PPI Tracy]

You may or may not find comfort in the answer. 

Greaaaaaat.  Guess I'm not moving there, either.