Earthquake

Wife was getting dinner ready last night and I was just standing around with my thumb up my rear when there was a huge explosion that rocked our house and nearly shattered the windows. I ran outside to see if all the house was still standing and to look for smoke and flames. We live just few miles from Dover AFB so I was also looking for a mushroom cloud in that direction thinking maybe North Korea had missed D.C. and caught us. Turns out it was an earthquake. We've been through many earthquakes and this did not feel like any earthquake we have experienced. Luckily no reports of injury or damage.

It was reported as a 4.1, but we never felt it. You were a lot closer to the epicenter though. They said that was at Bombay Hook.

or... did Cuba do an underground nuke test ?    ???

Being in California and living near enough to Hollister (thousands of quakes a year) I can state honestly that I've never heard an earthquake go 'boom'.

Interestingly enough, doesn't the Steven King novel 'The Mist' start out with something like that at an air base?

[quote author=8Muddypaws]I've never heard an earthquake go 'boom'.[/quote]

Me either, in 37 years living in the Bay area. OTOH I was home when the '89 quake hit, and there was a very definite loud 'thud', before dead silence. When we see a 4.x, the hanging lampshades might move a little, and that's my confirmation that we just had another small trembler.

This was like an explosion and it rumbled afterwards for several seconds. We experienced several earthquakes in Japan and none "exploded". They all started with a sort of roll that intensified and it seems there were always after shocks. If you were outside it was hard to keep standing during the quakes. Inside the house I had to hold on to something. This one wasn't like that.

looking at the USGS Earthquake monitor map there have been a number of rather unusual quakes on the North American plate the last day or so:

https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/#%7B%22autoUpdate%22%3A%5B%22autoUpdate%22%5D%2C%22basemap%22%3A%22grayscale%22%2C%22feed%22%3A%221day_m25%22%2C%22listFormat%22%3A%22default%22%2C%22mapposition%22%3A%5B%5B-75.05035357407698%2C-243.984375%5D%2C%5B83.97925949886205%2C133.9453125%5D%5D%2C%22overlays%22%3A%5B%22plates%22%5D%2C%22restrictListToMap%22%3A%5B%22restrictListToMap%22%5D%2C%22search%22%3Anull%2C%22sort%22%3A%22newest%22%2C%22timezone%22%3A%22utc%22%2C%22viewModes%22%3A%5B%22list%22%2C%22map%22%5D%2C%22event%22%3Anull%7D

Most quakes are along fault lines.
I have felt a couple that were like the one OldGator describes, though. One in Arkansas was apparently a subterranean cavern collapsing in the Ozarks near Benton County. and another near Conway that was never explained.
 

Jerry's grandmother was attending Stanford during the 1906 earthquake.  She said it was very noisy and then they watched the ground roll like the swell of ocean waves.  In fact, she said it was waves of earth.  The top of the entrance to Stanford fell off.  The Stanford Chapel also was damaged.  The 12 Apostles (lovingly called The Football Team by the students) were around the inside and they fell off their pedestals.  The dome ceiling held in the 1906 earthquake but was seriously damaged during the Loma Prieta earthquake.  I had just been there to a memorial service about two weeks previously and part of the dome fell right where I had been sitting.  I was at home and under the dining table during that quake watching the ceiling light sway and the hot tub water sloshing across our deck.  Jerry was trying to hold up bookcases in his office.  I worked in the Cal Poly Library at the time and the shelves on the third floor all emptied but the ones on the second floor did not.  The third floor shelves also tipped sideways but the second floor shelves were intact.

The earthquake I most remember was as a kid in Tokyo.  There was a 7.something on Christmas morning and our Christmas tree waltzed half way across the living room.  Our "houseboy" stayed in bed and Mother asked him why he didn't go outside.  He said "Mama-san, when it goes sideways I stay inside, when it goes up and down I run."  In other words, swaying isn't as dangerous as the building jumping off the foundation.

ArdraF

LarsMac said:

looking at the USGS Earthquake monitor map there have been a number of rather unusual quakes on the North American plate the last day or so:

https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/#%7B%22autoUpdate%22%3A%5B%22autoUpdate%22%5D%2C%22basemap%22%3A%22grayscale%22%2C%22feed%22%3A%221day_m25%22%2C%22listFormat%22%3A%22default%22%2C%22mapposition%22%3A%5B%5B-75.05035357407698%2C-243.984375%5D%2C%5B83.97925949886205%2C133.9453125%5D%5D%2C%22overlays%22%3A%5B%22plates%22%5D%2C%22restrictListToMap%22%3A%5B%22restrictListToMap%22%5D%2C%22search%22%3Anull%2C%22sort%22%3A%22newest%22%2C%22timezone%22%3A%22utc%22%2C%22viewModes%22%3A%5B%22list%22%2C%22map%22%5D%2C%22event%22%3Anull%7D

Most quakes are along fault lines.
I have felt a couple that were like the one OldGator describes, though. One in Arkansas was apparently a subterranean cavern collapsing in the Ozarks near Benton County. and another near Conway that was never explained.

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Has the USGS made any statements concerning the unusual activity? By the way, the graphic you posted was really interesting.

Oldgator73 said:

Wife was getting dinner ready last night and I was just standing around with my thumb up my rear when there was a huge explosion that rocked our house and nearly shattered the windows. I ran outside to see if all the house was still standing and to look for smoke and flames. We live just few miles from Dover AFB so I was also looking for a mushroom cloud in that direction thinking maybe North Korea had missed D.C. and caught us. Turns out it was an earthquake. We've been through many earthquakes and this did not feel like any earthquake we have experienced. Luckily no reports of injury or damage.

Click to expand...

I would bet the explosion you heard was a gas line exploding.

SeilerBird said:

I would bet the explosion you heard was a gas line exploding.

Click to expand...

Or a transformer shorting out?

sonic boom ?

Or somebody who has never experienced a small earthquake's head exploding.

8Muddypaws said:

Or somebody who has never experienced a small earthquake's head exploding.

Click to expand...

) ) )

I'm north of Dover and east of Aberdeen PG in MD. Their program routinely rattles our house. I heard the boom that day but assumed it was APG. Never would have guessed that was an earthquake. I'm kinda afraid to mention the weird lights in the sky we saw one night last week!

We are not convinced it was an earthquake. Just did not feel anything like any earthquake we have experienced.

When we do have them in southern New England, most of the time they go boom. When I lived in southern Cal, my dogs could sense them before we could. But don't remember any booms there. House would vibrate though.

When I first visited California while still living in the UK, where virtually all houses are built with bricks and cement, a colleague commented "if you had an earthquake in the UK, the houses would fall down".

If you are interested in Earthquakes, you might try this Facebookpage, https://www.facebook.com/pg/dutchsinseofficial/posts/?ref=notif.

He reports and well as predicts.

Thanks