Is GOD trying to tell that wicked political system in america something? DC shaken by an earthquake
3.6-magnitude earthquake wakes Md. residents
Temblor centered in Gaithersburg felt by as many as 3 million people in Mid-Atlantic region
By Brent Jones and Frank Roylance, The Baltimore Sun
July 16, 2010 | 9:33 a.m.
A 3.6-magnitude earthquake with a center near Gaithersburg was reported around 5 a.m. Friday, and felt by as many as 3 million people in the Mid-Atlantic region, according to the United States Geological Survey.
It may have been the strongest measured tremor on record for the state. The Maryland Geological Survey's web site lists the strongest confirmed tremor centered in Maryland prior to this one was a 3.1 shaking recorded in Hancock in 1978.
The Friday morning earthquake was reported across the Baltimore area as well as in D.C. Virginia, Pennsylvania and Delaware. People in Columbia, Owings Mills, Carroll County and Odenton reported feeling the quake this morning, describing the movement as enough to rattle household items.
Odenton resident Paul Muirhead said the temblor woke him up around 5:05 a.m. "I was startled from my sleep as if being shaken," he wrote in an e-mail. "Though there was hardly any light by which to see, I could hear items of mine — large and small — rattling on glass shelves."
» Don't miss a thing. Get breaking news alerts delivered to your inbox.
Jessica Sigala, a geophysicist with the USGS's National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colo., said there have been no reports of significant damage or injuries.
The earthquake marked the second time within a month that Marylanders have felt the effects of tremors. On June 23, a 5.0-magnitude quake with an epicenter near Ottawa sent shockwaves along the East Coast.
Sigala said back-to-back earthquakes in this area are unusual, particularly because the Mid-Atlantic states do not fall along a fault line like California. "We do have them [in the Mid-Atlantic], it's just not very often," Sigala said.
The USGS placed the epicenter of the tremor about 3 miles beneath the Gunners Lake Village area of Germantown, just south of the I-270 interchange with Middlebrook Road, at Exit 13.
USGS officials estimate about 12,000 people experienced moderate shaking this morning, and about 300,000 felt light shaking. Millions of others may have felt at least a degree of shaking, USGS officials said.
President Barack Obama was not one of those millions, however. In a chat before his departure for Maine Friday morning, Obama said he did not feel this morning's earthquake in Washington, which was 20 miles from the quake epicenter.
Self-reporters in Gaithersburg and Jessup described the quake on the government agency's website as having a Modified Mercali Intensity as high as 4. An MMI of 4 is the equivalent to the vibration of heavy trucks passing, and can cause pictures to swing and household objects rattle.
Alvin Borenstein of Randallstown said the quake woke up his entire household.
"All of a sudden, we felt the house shake," he said. "It woke my granddaughter up, it woke my son up, and it woke me and my wife up. The house shook. We didn't know what it was."
Of his 60 years in Randallstown, he said he's never had an experience like that one.
"You're looking up at the ceiling and your house is shaking," Borenstein said. "It was terrible. We were really, really scared."
Most Americans don't think of the eastern United States as being prone to earthquakes. The East Coast is far from major continental plate boundaries, like those on the West Coast and at the center of the Atlantic Ocean.
But there are many smaller faults beneath our feet, some known, some still undetected, geologists say. Many are discovered only after a quake.
Although there are several places east of the Rockies where quakes are fairly common – including the New Madrid seismic zone centered in southeastern Missouri, and others in New England – most of the region can go years without a tremor.
But when big quakes do strike the eastern states, they can be felt 10 times farther away than an equivalent quake on the West Coast. In 1886, when Charleston, S.C., was devastated by a great quake, the shaking was sharply felt throughout Maryland.
A series of quakes in 1811-1812, centered in the New Madrid area, with magnitudes estimated at 8.7, shook a vast region, with effects noted as far away as Maryland and New England.
Baltimore Sun reporter Jamie Smith Hopkins contributed to this article.
