I live in Harrisburg,PA and we felt it pretty big.I just heard a loud noise behind me and next thing i knew my couch was shaking and i heard **** being tossed around.But my question is,does this earthquake open up the possibilty of more east coast earthquakes now?I mean,will they be more common.Not as much as california,but like,once a month or something.Thanks
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I check the USGS earthquakes everday when I go online just to watch the "creep" (the little earthquakes) migrate on the fault lines in CA and to see where else there are quakes. Every once and a while there are little quakes in eastern Canada and hither and yon in the states along the Atlantic coast and in Ohio, etc.
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/r…
You can see the little squares in Maine, in western NY, etc. The quake on the Colorado/New Mexico border, like the Virginia quake, happened where large earthquakes don't usually happen - but there's no connection between the two.
There's been 4 quakes in the Virginia area today (1 main shock and 3 aftershocks) and, considering the size of the quake, that's not really bad. That area can expect more aftershocks in the next few weeks but none should be big enough to be felt over the same wide area that today's main shock was felt in. The east coast doesn't have a system of long, interconnected faults that would absorb the energy from a large quake and then rupture causing more and more quakes.
Once the earth moves, it continues to move a little here and there close to the epicenter because the earth in the area has to get readjusted and has to settle down. Normally, there are no more big quakes unless the large quake was really a foreshock (a large quake before an even bigger one) but, once again, the east coast doesn't have the system of long faults necessary for this.
Odds are that there will continue to be occasional quakes in the east but because the system of faults is so poorly developed, today's quake isn't likely to cause more quakes. The area to watch is the New Madrid Fault Zone (where the bunch of little yellow squares is clustered where Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky and Tennessee meet). This is the biggest fault system in this part of the US and could potentially have a large/great quake. Oklahoma has had more than its share of quakes in the past year, too.
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/r…
You can see the little squares in Maine, in western NY, etc. The quake on the Colorado/New Mexico border, like the Virginia quake, happened where large earthquakes don't usually happen - but there's no connection between the two.
There's been 4 quakes in the Virginia area today (1 main shock and 3 aftershocks) and, considering the size of the quake, that's not really bad. That area can expect more aftershocks in the next few weeks but none should be big enough to be felt over the same wide area that today's main shock was felt in. The east coast doesn't have a system of long, interconnected faults that would absorb the energy from a large quake and then rupture causing more and more quakes.
Once the earth moves, it continues to move a little here and there close to the epicenter because the earth in the area has to get readjusted and has to settle down. Normally, there are no more big quakes unless the large quake was really a foreshock (a large quake before an even bigger one) but, once again, the east coast doesn't have the system of long faults necessary for this.
Odds are that there will continue to be occasional quakes in the east but because the system of faults is so poorly developed, today's quake isn't likely to cause more quakes. The area to watch is the New Madrid Fault Zone (where the bunch of little yellow squares is clustered where Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky and Tennessee meet). This is the biggest fault system in this part of the US and could potentially have a large/great quake. Oklahoma has had more than its share of quakes in the past year, too.
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