I was awake and aware for two recent earthquakes felt in my area of San Jose. When you look at the information regarding earthquakes there are earthquakes all the time. We just don’t always feel them. The earthquakes that I have been feeling lately have been somewhat different. They have been JOLTS. Well at least two of the last three. But the two I felt just recently were both different. The first one was small. It measured 2.8. It started out as a little rumble. I didn’t hear a rumble, I felt it, like a truck driving by on the street, then it felt as if someone gave the house a little shove.
Then next one or the one I felt most recently was a 4.1. It was more of the kind I am used to. I am used to the shaking kind. I don’t like the rolling kind, I am more familiar with the shaking kind.
So, yeah, if you have never been in an earthquake they are different. I am assuming it has to do with what plates are doing the moving. But there is the kind that shake, the kind that roll, and this sort of new-to-me jolting kind. Odd. Sometimes there are ones that shake and roll, but I don’t remember having felt one of those in a while.
I was not in the Bay Area when the Loma Prieta quake hit. But I felt it all the way in Rohnert Park, near Santa Rosa, past San Francisco. It was odd the way it worked out, the day before our neighbor in the office next door had been hanging pictures and banging on the wall and shaking it. So my boss and I thought that was what was happening.
I remember hearing a long time ago that each number on the Richter Scale actually is 10 times as much movement. So if we have a point 4 earthquake it is actually 10 times as much movement as a 3 pointer would be. So the difference just sounds like a digit but in actual energy and movement it is a lot more. I can’t even begin to fathom the example that was given. It was something like, an earthquake with a magnitude of one releases as much energy as 6 ounces of TNT, but an 8 pointer is as much as 6 million tons of TNT. Huh? Either way, that is a HUGE, HUGE difference. Way more than just 7 digits of measurement it sounds like.
Earthquakes are weird. There are so many things in our world that can make it move sometimes we don’t even realize we are having an earthquake. I used to work in a building where every time someone stomped by my entire cubical it would shake. So I often didn’t even know when we were having an earthquake, I just thought it was someone walking by my cube.
Today, I saw so much talk regarding earthquakes I was amazed. It seems like everyone has something to say about an earthquake. Either they were in one, they don’t like them, they do like them, they think they are fun, they are afraid of them, or they didn’t feel it. Even people that have never been in one have stuff to say. It is amazing.
Since so many people have stuff to say about them, I thought you might want to share something. For me one of the three earthquakes I mentioned above made our house felt like it received a BIG shove. Stuff was knocked off the walls. Have you been in one? Have you never been in one, but they are still scary? Do your animals freak out right before there is one? Were you around this area in ’89? Share.
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