Manic Monday - quake

Mo's word for today is QUAKE. Mo picked this word because he and his kitty cats felt the QUAKE that hit on Friday morning. I thought, if I could, I'd find out some detailed info about it.

Latest earthquakes in the United States - last 7 days.
(if you click on the link you'll get a better picture of the map.)

The big blue square in the center of the country is the 5.2 QUAKE that hit the Midwest April 18, 2008.

The Los Angeles Times said: The earthquake, which measured 5.2 on the Richter Scale, struck at 4:36 a.m. near the town of West Salem, Ill., about 60 miles northwest of Evansville, Ind., according to the U.S. Geological Survey. An initial estimate of the magnitude put it at 5.4, which would have matched the strongest earthquake recorded in the region.

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Earthquake Details

Seven Steps to Earthquake Safety

Magnitude	5.2
Date-Time	Friday, April 18, 2008 at 09:37:00 UTC Friday, April 18, 2008 at 04:37:00 AM at epicenter Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones
Location	38.450°N, 87.890°W
Depth	11.6 km (7.2 miles) set by location program
Region	ILLINOIS
Distances	7 km (5 miles) NNE (13°) from Bellmont, IL 9 km (6 miles) E (88°) from Bone Gap, IL 11 km (7 miles) N (350°) from Keensburg, IL 41 km (26 miles) SW (232°) from Vincennes, IN 60 km (38 miles) NNW (331°) from Evansville, IN 206 km (128 miles) E (95°) from St. Louis, MO
Location Uncertainty	Error estimate not available
Parameters	NST=111, Nph=111, Dmin=36.4 km, Rmss=0 sec, Gp= 61°, M-type=moment magnitude (Mw), Version=A
Source	Center for Earthquake Research and Information, Memphis, Tennessee, USA
Event ID	us2008qza6

This event has been reviewed by a seismologist.

The USGS has a form for anyone who felt the earthquake and wants to report it.

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So what does 5.2 mean?

According to the National Post:

Friends, meet the Richter scale. It's not an actual scale, mind you, but rather a mathematical formula that determines the magnitude, or strength, of an earthquake from the logarithm of the amplitude of waves caused by ground movements as recorded on a seismogram. The Richter magnitude scale then assigns a single number on a base-10 scale to quantify the amount of seismic energy released by an earthquake.

The Wikipedia entry on the Richter scale has more information of the specific calculations in play here, but the gist of it is that each whole number difference in the magnitude scale represents an increase of 31 times the energy created by a quake. Richter's motivation for creating this magnitude scale was to compare and separate the vastly higher number of small earthquakes from the greater and less frequent quakes hitting California at the time.

There are seven classes of earthquake based on magnitude: micro (less than 3.0), minor (3.0-3.9), light (4.0-4.9), moderate (5.0-5.9), strong (6.0-6.9), major (7.0-7.9) and great (greater than 8.0).

So the QUAKE Friday is considered a moderate one.

The media has reported that the QUAKE was felt all across the Midwest.

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Mo, did you know that there was once a breakfast cereal called QUAKE?

Quaker Oats Quake

Quake (1966) provided "earthquake power!" to those who ate it. Quake was a giant of a man in a hard hat, flexed biceps, and sported a "Q" on his big, muscular chest. He originally wore a miner's helmet. Original Quake cereal was made at the earth's core. "The sugary sweet cereal with the power of an earthquake." In 1969 he trimmed down and put on an Aussie cowboy hat. Other Characters included: Quunchy, Mother Lode (Quake's mom), and the evil Dr. Ah-Ah. Quake was voiced William Conrad (TV's "Cannon", and the narrator of "The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show").

theteach