Patterico's Pontifications

4/29/2008

5.2 Magnitude Quake Hits Northern California

Filed under: Environment — DRJ @ 8:49 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

A 5.2 magnitude earthquake was recorded in Northern California in the last hour. The USGS map shows the epicenter was approximately 35 miles east of Eureka CA.

Anyone feel it?

— DRJ

14 Responses to “5.2 Magnitude Quake Hits Northern California”

  1. I believe it’s retribution for U.S. foreign policy.

    steve (0e23c8)

  2. Chickens … roost … EUREKA!

    DRJ (a431ca)

  3. God DAMN Eureka!!

    I bet Nathan Stark and Global Dynamics is behind it… But don’t worry, Sheriff Jack Carter will figure it all out.

    Scott Jacobs (d3a6ec)

  4. As Jay Leno once joked about an LA quake, the tremor was strong enough to make most of the neighborhood drag queens fall clean off of their 4-inch platform heels.

    qdpsteve (cd214a)

  5. eureka is a dump, but it does have an adequate supply of cheap motel rooms. if you’re in the area, check out ferndale about 15 miles southwest, home of america’s finest blacksmith shop, catch lunch at curly’s (curley’s?), the northernmost restaurant in california that i recommend to folks, then do the gorgeous petrolia/honeydew drive down one of the state’s most isolated beaches, down to the mattole river, then eastward to the avenue of the giants.

    assistant devil's advocate (1009a5)

  6. Not a bit in San Francisco. Of course, it’s been windy and the building’s been shaking some, but no temblors.

    Michael Llaneza (925c0c)

  7. 5.2 is rather mild, we had one that strong here in Iowa a week or so ago about 4:30 AM. I get home from work between 1 AM to 5 AM so I happened to be up watching TV when it hit,

    I didn’t FEEL anything but for a split second the right angles between my walls and ceiling suddenly changed and the room took on the aspect of a parallegram rather than a cube, I thought I was too tired and “imagined” it until later in the day when I found out about the quake LOL

    Dan Kauffman (b31cae)

  8. Too far away from me to feel it, but a friend in Redding said she felt it. In Reno, we’ve had our own swarm of quakes to deal with. Nothing major, the main shock was 4.7, centered about 5 miles from my domicile.

    People at work are going on about how this swarm was so extraordinary. I point out it was a typical foreshocks/mainshock/aftershocks pattern, but they don’t believe me.

    Steverino (6772c8)

  9. #8 Steverino:

    People at work are going on about how this swarm was so extraordinary. I point out it was a typical foreshocks/mainshock/aftershocks pattern, but they don’t believe me.

    Neither do some petrogeologist friends of mine.

    Apparently the shocks in your area are shallower than normal, and often a precursor to an eruptive event.

    EW1(SG) (84e813)

  10. EW, the folks at the Nevada Seismology Laboratory disagree. They say the quakes are typical for Nevada’s mountain ranges.

    We had some small quakes (in the 3 range) on Thursday, a main shock on Friday, and a series of aftershocks Saturday through Monday. While anything is possible, I’m thinking the recent quakes were horses, not zebras.

    Steverino (e00589)

  11. Steverino:

    They say the quakes are typical for Nevada’s mountain ranges.

    That may well be, when the petro boys start talking my eyes tend to glaze over a bit.

    EW1(SG) (84e813)

  12. Don’t blame you one bit, EW. Like I said, anything is possible, so I don’t completely discount what your petrogeologist friends have to say.

    What I was getting at was that many people I work with (I write software for slot machines, so none of us are geologists) were saying that earthquakes don’t happen in the pattern of a few small shocks, followed by a big shock, followed by more small shocks. I tried to tell them that they’ve probably been through foreshocks before without realizing it, that the mainshock was long enough afterwards to remove the association from their minds, but they would rather think that the past week’s quakes were all some kind of new pattern. What’s a guy to do? 🙂

    Steverino (e00589)

  13. What’s a guy to do

    Always make sure you know where the nearest threshold is, so you can stand under it when the earth starts shaking 🙂

    And a mostly apropos joke:
    Two sisters who live on opposite sides of the continent talk over the phone.
    California: Well, after twenty five years of marriage, it finally happened for me! The earth really moved!
    New York: You mean you’ve gone all this time and never been through an earthquake?
    California: No, silly! Carl finally got it right in bed last night!

    kishnevi (2b3e28)

  14. hy i live here in NORTHERN CALFORNIA i didnt feel it but i guess it cuased some real shake ups and i live with in a 50 mile radius of MT SHASTA and i suppose that new age eco-freak hollyweird star SHARON McCLENDON will blabber this gaia new age pagan poppycock bull kaka

    krazy kagu (b3eb4a)


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