[Rockhounds] Difference between East and West Coast US earthquakes, was New Madrid fault

[J Bryan Kramer]

That's interesting, of course the west was created by a series of island
chains crashing into the western coastline. That created the Basin and Range
topography and of course fractured the rock and created all those faults.
McPhee has a good book about it called, no surprise, Basin and Range

<
http://www.amazon.com/Basin-Range-John-McPhee/dp/0374516901/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1238175482&sr=8-1
>

But it's better to get it in his compilation Annals of the Former World

<
http://www.amazon.com/Annals-Former-World-John-McPhee/dp/0374518734/ref=pd_bbs_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1238175482&sr=8-2
>

BK

On Fri, Mar 27, 2009 at 10:57, Carol J. Bova <bova at mindspring.com> wrote:

> Dora,
> It's not that scientists can't deal with dynamic complexity, it's that
> there is a major difference between California and the East Coast when it
> comes to earthquakes:
>
> "East Coast earthquakes, such as the one that struck Charleston, South
> Carolina, in 1886 are felt over a much larger area than earthquakes
> occurring on the West Coast, because the eastern half of the country is
> mainly composed of older rock that has not been fractured and cracked by
> frequent earthquake activity in the recent geologic past. Rock that is
> highly fractured and crushed absorbs more seismic energy than rock that is
> less fractured. The Charleston earthquake, with an estimated magnitude of
> about 7.0, was felt as far away as Chicago, more than 1,300 km to the
> northwest, whereas the 7.1-magnitude Loma Prieta earthquakes was felt no
> farther than Los Angeles, about 500 km south. The most widely felt
> earthquakes ever to strike the United States were centered near the town of
> New Madrid, Missouri, in 1811 and 1812. Three earthquakes, felt as far away
> as Washington D.C., were each estimated to be above 8.0 in magnitude. Most
> of us do not associate earthquakes with New York City, but beneath Manhattan
> is a network of intersecting faults, a few of which are capable of causing
> earthquakes. The most recent earthquake to strike New York City occurred in
> 1985 and measured 4.0 in magnitude, and a pair of earthquakes (magnitude 4.0
> and 4.5) shook Reading, Pennsylvania, in January 1994 causing minor damage."
> From: USGS, This Dynamic Earth,  Plate Tectonics and People
> http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/dynamic/tectonics.html
>
> ((Side note: I had just moved to Brooklyn in 1985, and the night before our
> furniture arrived, was sleeping on the floor in a sleeping bag when the
> quake on the Hudson Valley  fault hit. It felt like someone shaking me, and
> it wasn't until I sat up and realized my husband was still asleep, and
> another tremor shook us that I realized I was experiencing my first
> earthquake.))
>
> Check out this database:
> U.S. Geological Survey and New Mexico Bureau of Mines and Mineral
> Resources, 2006,
> Quaternary fault and fold database for the United States, accessed Jan 9,
> 2006, from USGS web site:
> http//earthquake.usgs.gov/regional/qfaults/
>
> It is so full of information and links and maps, you could spend a year in
> it!
> Carol
>
>
>
> On Mar 27, 2009, at 10:55 AM, Dora Smith wrote:
>
>  Thanks!  Good article!  I will add it to my page.
>>
>> It looks like the scientists workign on the fault really can't deal with
>> dynamic complexity; it's a problem shared by alot of scientists.
>>
>> Rules that apply to the California faults don't apply to the New Madrid
>> fault system?   Come on!
>> Yours,
>> Dora Smith
>> Austin, TX
>> tiggernut24 at yahoo.com
>>
>
>  ----- Original Message ----- From: <betdav97 at aol.com>
>> To: <rockhounds at lists.drizzle.com>
>> Sent: Thursday, March 26, 2009 12:30 PM
>> Subject: Re: [Rockhounds] New Madrid fault
>>
>>  Except for the first few posts, I have not been following this
>>> thread, but this just came across the net, hope it hasn't been
>>> posted already.
>>>
>>> http://news.aol.com/article/new-madrid-fault/398744
>>>
>>>
>
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-- 
“It often seems to me that the night is much more alive and richly colored
than the day."

                      Vincent van Gogh

J Bryan Krämer       North Florida, USA
photos at: http://pbase.com/photoburner
blog at: http://www.photoburner.net


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