The zone extends east-west about 120km from the Fall Line to Blue Ridge and is about 100km wide in the north-south direction. Join us as we talk to David Russ, who is the USGS Regional Executive for the Northeast Area, about that event as well as earthquake risk, history and geology along the East coast. LOUISA, Va. (WAVY) — A magnitude 2.7 earthquake was recorded on Monday morning in Central Virginia, with an epicenter just miles from the magnitude 5.8 quake that shook the commonwealth in …
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the epicenter of the quake was located near Cuckoo, in Louisa County. The magnitude 5.8 earthquake that struck Louisa County was among the largest to occur along the eastern seaboard of the United States. Treating the shaking as if it were a fire drill,...The 23 August 2011 Mineral, Virginia, earthquake (Mw 5.8) was the largest to strike the eastern U.S. since 1897 and was felt over an extraordinarily large area. On August 23, 2011 tens of millions of people along the East Coast suddenly felt the earth shaking from the largest earthquake in the eastern U.S. since the M5.8 earthquake in 1944 near Cornwall and Massena, New York.The M5.8 earthquake occurred near Mineral, Virginia, and provided scientists with a rare opportunity to record, observe, and analyze data that had previously not been available for this part of the U.S. Seismic data indicate that the earthquake rupture occurred on a southeast-dipping reverse fault and...Ground shaking due to earthquakes in the eastern United States (EUS) is felt at significantly greater distances than in the western United States (WUS) and for some earthquakes it has been shown to display a strong preferential direction. The largest earthquake within 30 miles of Louisa, VA was a … The magnitude-5.8 quake, centered near Mineral in Louisa, struck Aug. 23, 2011. The M = 5.8 earthquake in the Central Virginia seismic zone has a The earthquake occurred in what scientists refer to as the “Central Virginia Seismic Zone”, a region characterized by low-level seismicity since at least 1774. Extraordinary distance limits of landslides triggered by the 2011 Mineral, Virginia, earthquake; 2012; Article; Journal; Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America; Jibson, Randall W.; Harp, Edwin L. Reported experiences for this earthquake provided data that can be used to more accurately estimate the shaking distribution from moderate-to-large future earthquakes in this area, as well as help us better estimate the magnitudes of older historical events with fewer historical accounts.
The shaking was Groundwater level changes (most <15 cm) were recorded at 48 wells as far as 550km from the epicenter, and the 40 3-component seismometers and 200 1-component seismometers, which were all deployed within about one week after the mainshock, provided the best-recorded aftershock sequence ever in the eastern U.S.No evidence of surface rupture has been found, but there were small sand boils identified near the epicenter caused by strong shaking as well as rock falls up to 245 km away. It was widely felt--from Maine to Georgia, west to Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Chicago, and southeastern Canada--over a broad area inhabited by one-third of the U.S. population. On August 23, 2011, a magnitude 5.8 earthquake hit the Piedmont region of the Commonwealth of Virginia, United States, at 1:51:04 p.m. EDT. The seismic history consists of letters, journals, diaries, and newspaper and scholarly articles that supplement seismograph recordings (seismograms) dating from the early twentieth century to the present. )Earthquakes in the Eastern U.S. from 1973 to February 12, 2015. It was an intraplate earthquake with a maximum perceived intensity of VII (Very strong) on the Mercalli intensity scale. (DYFI) Website (USGS, DYFI; http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/dyfi/events/se/082311a/us/index.html, last accessed Sept 2011) for the Mw5.8 Mineral, Virginia, earthquake, are unprecedented in their spatial richness and geographical extent. This reveals the extraordinary distances that damaging ground shaking can extend in eastern North America – about 10 times further than damaging or felt shaking extends in western North America. )Ultimately, scientific studies of this earthquake have helped scientists confirm with empirical data what they were previously able to only estimate or model from the sparse data and smaller earthquakes in this area.Below are publications associated with this project.The 23 August 2011 Mw (moment magnitude) 5.7 ± 0.1, Mineral, Virginia, earthquake was the largest and most damaging in the central and eastern United States since the 1886 Mw 6.8–7.0, Charleston, South Carolina, earthquake. However, even though several small earthquakes are recorded each month in the Eastern U.S., there are usually not enough events to map out and associate them with a specific fault, so the hypothesis had not been well tested. Dozens of aftershocks up to magnitude 4.5 have been recorded, including a magnitude 4.2 aftershock approximately six hours after the mainshock and a magnitude 4.5 aftershock about a day and a half later. The 2011 Virginia earthquake: what are scientists learning? While the rate of earthquakes is lower central and eastern U.S. than in the western U.S., earthquakes are not uncommon.The Central Virginia Seismic Zone. Scientists who study eastern and central North America earthquakes often work from the hypothesis that modern earthquakes occur as the result of slip on pre-existing faults that were formed in earlier geologic eras and that have been reactivated under the current stress conditions. The United States Geological Survey registered the quake at 5:04 a.m., about 5.5 miles from Louisa. Although no large landslides occurred, the shaking did trigger many rock and soil falls from steep river banks and natural cliffs in the epicentral area and from steep road cuts along, and...The intensity data collected by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) "Did You Feel It?" ; 2012; Article; Journal; Eos, Transactions American Geophysical Union; Horton, J. Wright, Jr.; Williams, Robert A.