Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Moderate Earthquake Shakes East Coast from Virginia to Vermont

OK, so it was moderate by California standards. By East Coast standards - holy crap! An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.9 shook Virginia at 1:51pm. It was centered 41 miles northwest of Richmond and 83 miles southwest of Washington, DC.

The Green Miles is in Vermont for work this week. I felt the conference center here in Stowe start rocking gently and thought it was a small, local earthquake. My jaw dropped when I saw tweets from DC friends reporting shaking there. The epicenter was 600 miles away, but it was still strong enough here to send the chandeliers swaying. Amazing!

While DC residents will remember the minor earthquake centered near Germantown on July 16, 2010, there was also a small earthquake in central Virginia on October 3, 2010.

UPDATE: According to the U.S. Geological Survey, it was the largest earthquake in Virginia since 1897.

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