Tue
Apr 20 2010
05:29 am
Earthquake!
By: R. Neal

At 5:28AM. Just about jumped out of my chair. Shook the whole house. One big boom, followed by a couple of lesser rumbles. Event lasted about 2-3 seconds. Woke the Mrs. She thought a plane had crashed, or someone had crashed a car into the house. Anyone else feel/hear it?

UPDATE: USGS reports 3.3 magnitude earthquake 5 mi WSW of Maryville, TN.

Topics:
daniel russell's picture

I agree, there was an Earthquake

Submitted by daniel russell (not verified) on Tue, 2010/04/20 - 5:46am.

Yes, I too felt it, it woke me, scared me, as I felt the whole house shook. It was in Maryville in the Panorama Estates...only a brief moment a few seconds.

bizgrrl's picture

Wow! I think I'm calmed down

Submitted by bizgrrl on Tue, 2010/04/20 - 5:54am.

Wow! I think I'm calmed down now.

Elrod's picture

I KNEW it

Submitted by Elrod on Tue, 2010/04/20 - 7:55am.

We had these booms several months ago in our neighborhood (near Sandy Springs Park) but they said it was not seismic. The first boom this morning was stronger than the ones last time but it sounded similar.

lovable liberal's picture

Alternate theory

Submitted by lovable liberal on Tue, 2010/04/20 - 6:43pm.

They say it's tectonic plate activity, but it could be the fact that one road has to carry four route designations all by itself.

R. Neal's picture

one road has to carry four

Submitted by R. Neal on Tue, 2010/04/20 - 7:00pm.

one road has to carry four route designations

You ought to hear my GPS trying to pronounce it. You're already past the exit by the time it rattles off all the numbers.

boulderdamn's picture

Wimps

Submitted by boulderdamn (not verified) on Tue, 2010/04/20 - 6:48pm.

Wow. A 3.3 quake rattles you. As someone who was born, raised, and lives in the SF Bay Area, this is hysterical. I usually sleep through those size quakes :)

But this isn't as funny as the time I was in Boston on business and the headline in the local paper read "Massive quake rattles Boston". Which puzzled me since I hadn't felt a thing. The article said it was a magnitude 2.2 quake. I couldn't stop kidding every local I met that day.

More seriously, you are close to the New Madrid fault. You should know what to do in an earthquake. Here's the standard advice...

bizgrrl's picture

Yeah, we're not real

Submitted by bizgrrl on Wed, 2010/04/21 - 11:47am.

Yeah, we're not real experienced with earthquakes. We felt our first one while visiting Anaheim about 10 years ago. A small one I'm sure, not many people took notice.

This one shook the house sort of like the shuttle flying over on its return to earth down in Florida.

Hildegard's picture

Great, an earthquake sophisticate

Submitted by Hildegard on Wed, 2010/04/21 - 3:07pm.

You remind me of my Michigan cousins who grew up on the U.P. on Lake Superior. Every time they came to visit, we took them to Watauga Lake, and every time we took them, they'd say, "THIS isn't a LAKE. We're from REAL LAKE country. Come on up to the SOO, and you'll see what a REAL lake looks like." It was kinda like, yeah, some big lakes up there, these dammed-up TVA rivers are no comparison. You are definitely the more lake-sophisticated, fer sher.

People around here know it's a small quake. But when you never have quakes, any quake is a big deal.

lovable liberal's picture

350 miles...

Submitted by lovable liberal on Thu, 2010/04/22 - 12:37pm.

... due west from Knoxville is not that close to New Madrid. Of course, a magnitude 8 would feel pretty close, and New Madrid is overdue. I'd bet on lots of soil liquefaction in West Tennessee, not a happy thought.

I remember a magnitude 3 in Massachusetts. I thought it was just a heavy truck hitting one of the concrete patches in the little street I lived on, but then it seemed to go on and on. I did live in a pretty rickety house at the time, but it was my housemate who really woke me up. Ironically, he had spent part of his childhood in Afghanistan, and he's now in California waiting for the Big One.

Massachusetts is thought to be overdue, too, and there's plenty of rubble in waiting in old unreinforced masonry buildings here, especially in the Back Bay of Boston, which is built on fill and already has problems with rotting wood pilings due to water table fluctuations.

But seriously, earthquakes are this year's shark attack story.

smalc's picture

There is some evidence the

Submitted by smalc on Thu, 2010/04/22 - 1:37pm.

There is some evidence the Wabash Valley zone is becoming more active than the New Madrid (they may be connected though). The WVSZ has had larger quakes in recent history, including a 5.4 in 2008.

R. Neal's picture

A 3.3 quake rattles you No,

Submitted by R. Neal on Tue, 2010/04/20 - 6:56pm.

A 3.3 quake rattles you

No, it didn't rattle me. It scared the bejeepers out of me.

(We live very near a fairly good size regional airport and an adjacent Air National Guard base, though, and that's always our first unfortunate thought...)

The New Madrid Fault is over in West TN, about 400 miles away, but yeah, it's been a topic of concern for state emergency preparedness and disrupting shipping/commerce. (It's on the Mississippi River and near FedEX HQ.)

In East TN there's a "seismic zone" that runs parallel to the Appalachians. They say it is relatively active, but only small ones like today (which was one of the bigger ones lately) and there is no identified fault, just a lot of activity way down deep in the earth. I think the USGS said a 4.3 or 4.5 is the largest recorded here.

I guess I would get used to it if I lived in California, but I don't know...

smalc's picture

In East TN there's a "seismic

Submitted by smalc on Wed, 2010/04/21 - 11:29am.

In East TN there's a "seismic zone" that runs parallel to the Appalachians. They say it is relatively active, but only small ones like today (which was one of the bigger ones lately) and there is no identified fault, just a lot of activity way down deep in the earth.

It's kind of disturbing that the experts don't know what causes the activity in the East TN zone. I attended a presentation by an expert about a year ago. They think it is related to the hot springs in NC, but don't really know.

talidapali's picture

The Chimneys peaks in GSMNP...

Submitted by talidapali on Wed, 2010/04/21 - 4:48pm.

are extinct volcano cones that have been worn down to the hardened cores over the last billion years or so. This area probably has a long history or seismic activity going back eons. A geologist would be able to tell you more about it I'm sure. And the Appalachian Mountains were a product of plate tectonics so there's that a well. It's not that surprising that we can and do get some small quakes from time to time. The ancient volcanoes around here are also one source of the gemstones that you can pan for over in NC at Franklin.

Midori Barstow's picture

Promiscuous women cause earthquakes, Iran cleric says

Submitted by Midori Barstow on Wed, 2010/04/21 - 12:21pm.

Women who dress provocatively and tempt people into promiscuity are to blame for earthquakes, a leading Iranian hard-line cleric has apparently said.

(link...)

lovable liberal's picture

Inshallah

Submitted by lovable liberal on Thu, 2010/04/22 - 12:40pm.

Those guys are such freaks, though there are people in ETenn they'd see eye-to-eye with (and eye-for-eye). I blogged this here.

Rachel's picture

There was a pretty good-sized

Submitted by Rachel on Wed, 2010/04/21 - 4:24pm.

There was a pretty good-sized earthquake here when I was in college. Must have been in '73. I was living in Fort Sanders, and about 2 in the morning there was a huge boom and it felt like the floor dropped a foot. My roommate, who was from Oak Ridge, set straight up in bed and yelled "omg, they've bombed Oak Ridge!"

Google tells me it was a 4.6, in October '73. (link...)

bizgrrl's picture

I thought I felt another

Submitted by bizgrrl on Thu, 2010/04/22 - 10:10am.

I thought I felt another earthquake last night. It is confirmed. It was not felt near as strongly at our house, more of a rumble.

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