This just in -- photo of DC earthquake devastation



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  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    Hah.



    I was on the red-line metro in DC when it apparently struck - first we (I was with a collegue on the train) knew of it was an SMS asking if we'd felt it.



    We thought he was taking the piss or something until we got back to the office. 5.8? We didn't even notice it.



    Until time came to go back home and the usual 40 minute journey back took 90 minutes.


  • Garbage Person

    My pickup truck fell off its hooptie-assed, hella-precarious concrete block jackstands. The quake didn't bother me, though. In fact, it amused me. I learned a Fact today - east coast geology is RETARDED. With west coast style geology, I should not have noticed a 5.8 in central Virginia from here, nevermind people in New York being able to. I'd like to know MUCH MORE about the science involved in this huge difference in behavior but I have absolutely no hope whatsoever that any publication other than "The Really Boring Journal of Geology" will ever publish anything about it.



  • The geology is pretty simple.  Here on the East Coast the mantle is old with very few faults.  It really one big giant solid rock, so vibrations are not absorbed/diminished much as they travel.  The West Coast, the mantle is relatively young, hot and squishy; so vibrations are absorbed much quicker.  It's like striking a bell made of solid copper (East Cost) vs playdough (West Coast).



  •  @Weng said:

    I have absolutely no hope whatsoever that any publication other than "The Really Boring Journal of Geology" will ever publish anything about it.

    Here is something from CNN about it, well the basics anyway.



  • @Weng said:

    My pickup truck fell off its hooptie-assed, hella-precarious concrete block jackstands. The quake didn't bother me, though. In fact, it amused me. I learned a Fact today - east coast geology is RETARDED. With west coast style geology, I should not have noticed a 5.8 in central Virginia from here, nevermind people in New York being able to. I'd like to know MUCH MORE about the science involved in this huge difference in behavior but I have absolutely no hope whatsoever that any publication other than "The Really Boring Journal of Geology" will ever publish anything about it.

    The entire East Coast is one gigantic, hard rock plate. So quake in one place is felt every place. The West Coast has younger ("softer") plates, and many more of them.


  • 🚽 Regular

    In New England, anyway, at least we know how it feels to get our equivalent of half an inch of snow in Georgia. I have to say, though, this event was the most hyped up news story I can think of. If you didn't know any better you'd think Washington DC was a wasteland after this.



  • I've been through so many earthquakes this year that they are mundane and boring.



  • @crippledsmurf said:

    I've been through so many earthquakes this year that they are mundane and boring.

    I've never been in one, that I know of. Apparently one happened when I was in Japan (March 2009) but I was dozing on a Shinkansen and didn't notice it.

    In January of this year 90% of my state was underwater, I even missed out on that, living and working in the other 10%! All that happened directly to me was my Internet dropped out for a few hours. And I got a week of free commuter train travel.



  • @Zemm said:

    In January of this year 90% of my state was underwater, I even missed out on that, living and working in the other 10%!

    Meanwhile I was over here in the west going "Why is all the water over there? Can't we get some of it on this side of the country?... Maybe not as much as those guys are getting, though."



  • Today on the radio they were talking about the (possible) hurricane hitting the east coast and what companies like Home Depot and Wal-Mart are doing to prepare.  According to Wal-Mart, the 2 most frequently purchased items after a hurricane are:

    1.  Strawberry Pop Tarts

    2.  Beer




  • @El_Heffe said:

    Today on the radio they were talking about the (possible) hurricane hitting the east coast and what companies like Home Depot and Wal-Mart are doing to prepare.  According to Wal-Mart, the 2 most frequently purchased items after a hurricane are:

    1.  Strawberry Pop Tarts

    2.  Beer


    Yeah yeah we get the same crap every disaster. I bet it's an urban legend anyway, it smells like bullshit and things that smell like bullshit are usually bullshit. Google's saying it came from Katrina, so it's probably in the same category as "druggies are eating babies in the bathrooms of the Superdome!"


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