Re: Earthquakes

[Owen DeLong <owen () delong com>]

In California, 4s are a regular occurrence and we have 2-3s every day.

I rarely notice anything less than  a 5, and, often do not notice up to a 5.5 in my area.

The worst quake I have personally experienced was the 1989 Loma Prietta quake
which was a 7.9 IIRC.  It caused some significant damage to some substandard
(by modern measure, not when they were built) structures, most notably the bay
bridge and the cypress and embarcadero elevated freeways and a brick-and-morter
(literally) mall in Santa Cruz.  Other than that, the damage from the 7.9 was minimal
outside of a relatively contained zone rather close to the epicenter.

I've been through more than one quake in the 5.2-5.5 range, so, perhaps they are
rare in the Netherlands (6 million years or so), but, in California they are much more
frequent, perhaps 5-7 years or so.

Owen

On Mar 24, 2010, at 12:31 PM, Jeroen van Aart wrote:

> I saw a recent(-ish) short thread about a mag. 4 quake in the SF Bay Area. This 
> http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsus/Maps/US2/36.38.-123.-121.php
> should provide with everything you need to know.
>
> I check it on a daily basis and it's been rather quiet the past week or 2 or so. Actually I guess it's been rather 
> quiet ever since the 1989 quake, but then a year or so ago I woke up in the morning from some rattling doors so I 
> guess it all depends on your perspective.
>
> So far the "worst" quake ever I experienced was in the Netherlands back around 1988. Magn. 5.2 or something. Which is 
> interesting considering these happen like once every 6 million years or thereabouts ;-)
> Actually I slept through it so I don't know if one can call it "experiencing".
>
> Greetings,
> Jeroen