Morning Audibles 7.16.10 - Shake Rattle & Roll

I knew I wasn't dreaming...


CV awoke early in this morning to a small rumble that built up rather quickly in intensity enough to be felt in a fairly interesting way... It probably didn't last for more than 8-10 seconds... But it was unmistakeable to me (who lived in Los Angeles for 13 years)... That was an EARTHQUAKE...


I was too sleepy to get out of bed to check the computer and verify, but lo and behold...

D.C. rattled by area's largest recorded earthquake

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38274327/ns/us_news-life

At the time, I knew it wasn't all that big, my guess was something close to a "4" (which is a "kiddy ride" for So Cal-ers), but is VERY unusual for these parts...

CV has been through some big ones before (including the "Northridge Quake", a 6.7) where I was living in, um, NORTHRIDGE at the time (actually visiting with, and staying with, a friend there)...

Within 6 months of the "Northridge Quake", CV moved to "Italy" (no connection), where a few years later, in Perugia, we were hit by the "Assissi Quake".

So the lesson here? There is none... This "little" one here is sure to get a lot of press locally, and LAUGHED at by people that live on active fault lines...

People who live in earthquake zones know that there are all kinds of different factors that go in to what a earthquake "feels" like...

- The intensity (actual number on the richter scale).
- How far you happen to be from the epicenter (CV "happened" to only be about 8 miles from ROCKVILLE as the crow flies, so even though this one was small, I felt it pretty large... Probably ahab too, ben, maybe? but probably not).
- whether it is a "jolting", or "rolling" type.
- The duration.
- What kind of structure you happen to be in at the time.
- The aftershocks (or pre-shocks).

So-Cal-ers even have "other" finely tuned senses... There are some days that a So-Cal-er will stop and just look around and say "this is EARTHQUAKE WEATHER"... Which, silly as it seems, is often accurate...

So, to wrap things up, this was not even NEAR the strongest earthquake I've ever experienced... I've probably been through more than 100... Probably only a dozen were noteworthy... 2-3 were downright scary... 1 I thought I was going to die...

This one was... MEH, an earthquake... But kind of cool (unusual) that it's happening in this region...

I now return you to your markets...