North Dakota

 

I'm in North Dakota.

The interesting thing I see in his links is the majority of the earthquakes are well below the oil field depths 4+ Km in that area and are energywise still rather small and the ones that are in the oil formation depths 0 - 3 Km are tiny at energy levels below 3.0 which is unperceivable to most anyone who is not in ideal conditions to feel them.

 

Earthquakes are part of the environment in California. One day as I arrived at work, a whole row of garage size pull-down doors went, thump thump thump thump thump thump thump! I guess a surface wave ran along that axis at that moment. That was in 1974, so I don't know if I can blame fracking.

 

3.0 magnitude earthquakes are actually very significant even for California. Up until the past 8 to 9 years, they have been very unusual (in both magnitude and frequency of occurrence) for the Plains States.

Quakes along the Hayward Fault are easily felt in San Francisco which is 18 miles away from the epicenter. In fact, the current level of earthquake activity in Oklahoma resembles the aftershock chain that followed several 6.5 magnitude events in California. Whether it's natural phenomenon (an earthquake "swarm") on an existing fault line or due to fracking/injection wells, there's a huge amount of energy being released.

By the way, my career in electronics started when I was a teenager in the 1960s and my primary interest was in seismograph station equipment. Over the past 40 years of living in California and working on seismographic stations, I've also developed a keen awareness of earthquakes and their behavior.

 

3.0 magnitude earthquakes are actually very significant even for California.

Results from my internet search:

3.0 — You may notice this quake if you are sitting still, or upstairs in a house. A hanging object, like a model airplane, may swing.
http://www.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=4892

The tiniest ones you can feel (maybe a 3.0) feel exactly like a large truck passing by outside.
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090929153335AAolQd1

If you're not in the epicenter you most likely wont feel anything for 1.0- 3.0
Usually the quakes that are below 4.0 can't be felt unless you're real close to the epicenter.
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090530183931AAQZ2jP

Very significant to whom?

 

Very significant to everyone in the San Francisco (or Los Angeles) area that's who.

I've been a resident of San Francisco and L.A. and I've been through several hundred quakes. A 3.0 centered 18 miles away feels like a sonic boom except without the audio part.

When one of these small ones occur, the radio stations start take taking calls and reports of strong motion are coming in over a 200 square mile area. The last stronger one was a 4.0 in South Hayward and I felt it here in S.F. over 30 miles from the epicenter.

As I previously posted, compare Oklahoma with San Francisco and there's definitely something fishy going on.

 

You and I have very different perceptions. If you think the thump of a sonic boom is, "very significant", you have probably never fallen off your tricycle, let alone been hit by a car.

You sound like, "If I had not been sitting alone in a quiet place I would have never detected that tiny movement. That's a Very Significant event!"

 

Have you lived in California and experienced the earthquakes here?

I can tell by your sarcasm that you are NOT experienced in such phenomenon. Just come out here for a vacation and wait until you're in a heavily reinforced concrete or steel frame building during one of the smaller ones. It's like getting rear ended at a while stopped traffic light.

And if you get lucky, there might even be a medium sized one (a 6.6) that can slide a fire truck 18 inches across the floor sideways and almost empty a swimming pool. Then you will see how funny it really is!!!!

 

1) yes, as evidenced in post #283.
2) Your mind reading isn't working tonight. I was very careful not to sound sarcastic.
3) I have been rear ended by a car. I got 8 broken bones in less than one second.
3a) How many of your bones did the earthquake break?
3b) Is this, "getting rear ended by a car" earthquake the same Magnitude 3 earthquake that other people find barely detectable?
4) I'm not understanding the, "funny" part of of a Magnitude 6.6 earthquake.

The more I think about this, the more I realize that simply walking on a flat, level surface inflicts more G forces on a human body than, "barely perceptible". If you call that, "very significant", I'm afraid you're going to run out of superlatives before you get to, "Levels cities and leaves them in flames".

 

I'm in North Dakota.

The interesting thing I see in his links is the majority of the earthquakes are well below the oil field depths 4+ Km in that area and are energywise still rather small and the ones that are in the oil formation depths 0 - 3 Km are tiny at energy levels below 3.0 which is unperceivable to most anyone who is not in ideal conditions to feel them.

An anecdote about those ideal conditions -- when I was in high school Denver got "hit" by an earthquake while I was in class and what was immediately obvious was none of the people that were standing felt anything. For those of use that were sitting, nearly all of the ones facing east or west felt it distinctly and the ones facing north/south were very hit/miss on whether they felt it or not. I was facing east and it felt like a wave coming under my feet an then my chair. My supposition has always been that it was right on the threshold of perception and those of use sitting down facing east had a better sensor sensitivity than the folks standing (six points of contact verses two) and better orientation than the people facing north/south (the wave came in the direction of three different contact times versus two). I also think we were more sensitive to a differential-mode front-to-back motion between our feet and the chair compared to a common-mode side-to-side motion of both.

 

Very significant to everyone in the San Francisco (or Los Angeles) area that's who.

I've been a resident of San Francisco and L.A. and I've been through several hundred quakes. A 3.0 centered 18 miles away feels like a sonic boom except without the audio part.

That's a pretty useless comparison. What does a sonic boom feel like? Depends on distance. They can be something that you can barely hear, something that is just very loud, or something that blows out windows.

 

@Glenn Holland

The bad new is...





The good news is...

It will land in oklahoma.





And it won't be nearly as concerning as the Tornados that they are fretting about - scheduled to come late this afternoon

 

Gopher, thanks for morning coffee through the nose. That was seriously funny.

Ron

 

I was in Turkey two years ago and experienced a 5.3 first hand. I was on a bed reading and it felt like someone was walking around on the bed. Everyone else who was used to that sort of stuff said it was no big deal quakes like that happen every few weeks there.

After that I started watching a water container I had in the room and sure enough the water was moving every now and then so I would look up where the earthquakes were on line at that moment and most anything that was below 3.5 was not easily perceivable first hand but was picked up by the water.

As for earthquakes which would you rather have? 10,000 4.0 and smaller that do no damage to anything that wasn't already near self collapse or one 8+ that really ef's things up?

 

The picture of the tumbleweed looks like it was US 64 in the panhandle of Oklahoma between Boise City and Guymon. There was a race between a tumbleweed moving south crossing US64 when I was heading east. It was about 5 foot tall when it finally crossed the road in front of me. I picked it up from about an half mile away and it cleared the hood of my F150 when I got up to it. That was about 17 years ago.

In July of 1992, there was an F4 tornado that hit Borger TX. I saw that on cross over US287 from about 10-15 miles as I was driving north on US287 from Amarillo. It was one big funnel.

 

I've always wondered what the sky looks like after it's fallen and is just laying there on the side of the road.... Hmmm.

 

News on the Fracking front...more than a year later...
Recent measurements have made a connection.
"The satellite data revealed that the two deep wells west of the town were responsible for the quake, while the shallow wells in the east were not connected to it."

https://www.rt.com/usa/360426-texas-earthquakes-man-made/

 

I don't know why, but that makes me think of that sickening moment when you're struggling to wrench off a bolt and it suddenly goes limp. You know it didn't break free, but has sheered completely off. There's nothing that feels the same. You know you've gone too far and there's no way to undo it.

 

I don't know why, but that makes me think of that sickening moment when you're struggling to wrench off a bolt and it suddenly goes limp. You know it didn't break free, but has sheered completely off. There's nothing that feels the same. You know you've gone too far and there's no way to undo it.

I did that about 5 months ago. A 3/4 to 1/2 adapter...trying to do 200 ft-lbs with a torque wrench. The wrench never got to 50 ft-lbs before the Chyneeze P.O.S twisted off.

Of course, I'm standing there with an axle bearing that needs to be torqued, but I'm not surprised the adapter twisted off.
Probably because I never needed 200 ft-lbs before and kinda suspected I would find a limit somewhere in my tools.

 

Yeah, I just did a break job and took advantage of AutoZone's tool loaner program. That 2-foot breaker bar is my new favorite tool! I'll never work on a car again without it. Even if it did allow me to rip off a stud.