6 May 2008
We had an earthquake!
Posted by Jessica Ball
Okay, so 1.8 is pretty dinky – but I felt this one, darn it. Whee! My first earthquake.
Details from the Arlington Alert website:
The USGS report:
Earthquake Details
| Magnitude | 1.8 |
|---|---|
| Date-Time |
|
| Location | 38.828°N, 77.234°W |
| Depth | 10 km (6.2 miles) set by location program |
| Region | VIRGINIA |
| Distances |
|
| Location Uncertainty | horizontal +/- 1.7 km (1.1 miles); depth fixed by location program |
| Parameters | NST= 6, Nph= 13, Dmin=70.2 km, Rmss=0.3 sec, Gp=151°, M-type=duration magnitude (Md), Version=1 |
| Source | |
| Event ID | ld1022071 |
Now I’m all excited. Yup, not getting any work done today.
(Actually, we thought someone was moving furniture upstairs. Or that our elevator had crashed. )
UPDATE: Oh, I feel cool. Got to do the “Did You Feel It?” report. Oh yeah.
UPDATE 2: Thanks to Ron for the email – he checked in with Callan and I right away. (Callan’s got great coverage, and he managed to find the seismogram of the earthquake from the Maryland Geological Survey. And he was practically on top of the thing. Lucky!)
Jessica Ball is a volcanologist at the U.S. Geological Survey, researching volcanic hydrothermal systems and stability, and doing science communication for the California Volcano Observatory. She previously worked at the Geological Society of America's Washington DC Policy Office, learning about the intersection of Earth science and legislative affairs. Her Mendenhall postdoc and PhD focused on how water affects the stability of volcanoes, and involved both field investigations and numerical modeling applications. Her blogging covers a range of topics, from her experiences in academic geosciences to science outreach and communication to her field and lab work in volcanology.
Woo hoo!
I lived in the No. Virginia area for 12 years and never once felt an earthquake – or even heard of one! Keep us posted on the cause.
Whoa. Congratulations on hitting that geologic milestone! Now all you need is the glacier, yeah?
This is such a great blog. Wonderful photos and content. Here is the correct link for th VA quake:May 6 VA quake. It’s the big blue trace around 12:30pm EST. I clicked on the link abouve today (05/12/07) and saw the China quake. It looked a bit strong for the VA quake. Anyway, I love your work and can’t get enough volcano.