Earthquakes have been a rare East Coast occurrence in the past. This rare event occurred however in August when an earthquake at a magnitude of 5.8 hit Virginia around 1:50 on a Tuesday afternoon. It hit near Richmond and was said to be “quite sizable” by a Texas Tech University seismologist. The earthquake was said to be so large that it even affected buildings as far as New York and Washington, DC – both cities even evacuating their citizens. Not even an hour later, another shock of about half of the magnitude occurred.
Plate boundaries are a large part of what allows earthquakes to occur. This is a reason as to why there are more earthquakes in the west, such as California, as there are on the east, such as in Virginia because the west is closer to these plate boundaries. These plate boundaries rub against one another to cause tension that can result in the shaking that is felt with an earthquake. A researcher says that he would think that the earthquake happened in August in Virginia because of “much less frequent release of stress from a small thrust fault in the region.”
I have personally never experienced an earthquake. It is however kind of frightening that one occurred in Virginia since it is only a few hours away from my hometown of South Carolina. It makes me worry that they will be seen occurring in the southeast more often – which is something that I would obviously rather not have. The scary part of this natural event is just that – it is natural and often unexpected. These can be very hurtful and lead to several deaths and several people’s home and belongings ruined. Some earthquakes have led to up to over 80,000 deaths. A 5.8 magnitude is quite high and very strong. I would be interested to see the number of fatalities that resulted from one at this magnitude. A positive is that we live in a world today with technology that can test these occurrences and people can be informed of ways to protect themselves and so on.
No comments:
Post a Comment