Topic: Toronto "earthquake"

[mackbig]

Well, just felt my first earthquake.  Very strange feeling in your gut when it happens.   

A little scary when expecting bombs and terrorism related to G20 summit. More comforting once someone on a conference call with an office 40Km's away felt it.

My earthquake script is no go, I checked it seconds after felt it, but I am sure the Canadian version of the USGS does not have a huge bandwidth since Canada is fairly inactive with quakes.

Andrew

[saratogaWX]

Whoo... yes, a 5.5 quake is a good sized one, especially for a region not used to tremors!

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsus/Quakes/us2010xwa7.php

Happy rock'in and roll'in, Andrew

Best regards,
Ken

[mackbig]

Thanks Ken,
I finally saw it on usgs around when you posted.

Cant believe it was so far away. Ottawa is 400km from Toronto, and it was another 55k north of there.  Must have really been shaky in Ottawa and Montreal.

Also cant believe how under powered our Ministry of Natural Resources web site is...

As I said before, the big worry here was that it was related to the Summit, and since the building I am in is only 100 yards from the perimeter fence.... people were (some people) were running for the stairs....

Andrew

[saratogaWX]

An interesting view of the quake is the shake map for it from the USGS



You really see how the areas around lakes/rivers with moist alluvial soil get the 'jello shake' intensification.
Maybe some areas of Toronto have that moist alluvial soil that helped magnify the shaking locally .. usually, at 450km from a 5.5 quake wouldn't have much shaking (based on my own experiences here in the SF Bay area).

The USGS website has had some major upgrades in capacity and automation in the last few years (bless their hearts!) due to frequent visits by Californians as we see tremors quite often (most recent is the So.Cal Octillo quakes) so they expect high traffic

[PaulMy]

Andrew,
It was felt here in our office in London, Ontario about 200 km further west of you, and further away from the centre.  Co-workers noticed it but I didn't

Paul

[weathergirl]

I'm very disappointed with Natural Resources Canada. It states on my site that there have been no earthquakes reported in my area for thirty days, yet the USGS has already reported it

[mackbig]

Ann-Marie,
Until a few minutes ago I was the number 3 google hit for "earthquake Canada".  All the news stories have bumped me quite a bit.  My sitecounter was going thru the roof.  I am also mad at the MNR.  Also that for some reason my old Quake site is linked (which is not on google analytics), so I just quickly copied over my wxquake.php to put in its place. threw up a disclaimer about why its blank, and put a link to the USGS site.

Oh well, hopefully more will come, and like the weather stuff, and  come back often.

Andrew

[DJMWX86]

We even felt it here in NE Ohio but I did not feel it my self. Wonder how far West it was felt?

[mackbig]

240 site hits in last hour.   that's about my weekly avg on sitemeter.

Andrew

[weathergirl]

Andrew: I had a ton of hits as well. I felt bad because there was no data, so I replaced my quake-Canada.php script with Ken's
quake-USA.php script, and voila, data! I think I may continue to use this script

[mackbig]

Ann-Marie
I might do the same, but my simple renames and text edits were all I could do from work.

Andrew

[saratogaWX]

I found this highly interesting on the Summary page about the quake from the USGS

EARTHQUAKES IN THE WESTERN QUEBEC SEISMIC ZONE
Western Quebec Seismic Zone People in the large Western Quebec seismic zone have felt small earthquakes and suffered damage from larger ones for three centuries. The two largest damaging earthquakes occurred in 1935 (magnitude 6.1) at the northwestern end of the seismic zone, and in 1732 (magnitude 6.2) 450 km (280 mi) away at the southeastern end of the zone where it caused significant damage in Montreal. Earthquakes cause damage in the zone about once a decade. Smaller earthquakes are felt three or four times a year.

Earthquakes east of the Rocky Mountains, although less frequent than in the west, are typically felt over a much broader region. East of the Rockies, an earthquake can be felt over an area as much as ten times larger than a similar magnitude earthquake on the west coast. A magnitude 4.0 eastern earthquake typically can be felt at many places as far as 100 km (60 mi) from where it occurred, and it infrequently causes damage near its source. A magnitude 5.5 eastern earthquake usually can be felt as far as 500 km (300 mi) from where it occurred, and sometimes causes damage as far away as 40 km (25 mi).

(emphasis mine)   

I didn't know about the increased 'feeling' range for quakes East of the Rocky Mountains .. that's another reason why y'all were able to feel it at such a long distance

[mackbig]

Interesting Ken.

I knew Montreal had some seismic tendencies, and near my university, a 100k south-east of Montreal, we apparently had some 3's.  Never felt those, perhaps too much swaying induced by libations.

I cant support this as fact, but I heard when I was a kid, that the CN was meant for Montreal but was done in Toronto because of the earthquake risk.  But it was built to survive an 8.5 anyway.  If you have ever been to Montreal, it would be leveled by a 6+, so many raised highways, built in the cheap 70's....

Andrew

[tomcj2]

near my university, a 100k south-east of Montreal,

Bishop's?

[mackbig]

Correct.  There are people in Toronto (uncultured people of course) that have not heard of Bishop's when mentioned by name, so how did you guess based on a vague description?

Andrew

Bishop's?

[mmorris]

Didn't feel earth quake at work in Akron Oh and when I check the trigger on my quake catcher network sensor at home there were no trigger posted.

[tomcj2]

so how did you guess based on a vague description?

I spent one very enjoyable summer during the mid 60's going to school at Bishop's College School.  Ten years ago I returned to  Sherbrooke PQ on business.  A great part of the country.  One vivid memory that of still have of Lennoxville is that of watching Bob Bedard play tennis.  I still retain the ability to read a French language newspaper.

[Downlinerz2]

   The local news here in Toledo, Ohio had people on that felt the quake and showed a video from a local company's security camera where you could see objects shaking. I didn't feel a thing. 

[mackbig]

I could never get quake catcher working properly.  The real time application worked fine, but nothing ever uploaded.  I finally just turned it off.  For a university program I found there web site was severely lacking. Lots of looping navigation errors.  The live program was pretty cool though.

Andrew

Didn't feel earth quake at work in Akron Oh and when I check the trigger on my quake catcher network sensor at home there were no trigger posted.

[mackbig]

BCS is a very nice campus, just accross the river from BU.  Sounds like you learned more French in your summer than most learn in a four year program.  Lennoxville is a cool little town, too bad its part of Sherbrooke now, but I am sure the locals still think of it as independent.  Not too many places double in population during the school year.

Andrew

I spent one very enjoyable summer during the mid 60's going to school at Bishop's College School.  Ten years ago I returned to  Sherbrooke PQ on business.  A great part of the country.  One vivid memory that of still have of Lennoxville is that of watching Bob Bedard play tennis.  I still retain the ability to read a French language newspaper.

[SlowModem]

I could never get quake catcher working properly.  The real time application worked fine, but nothing ever uploaded.  I finally just turned it off.  For a university program I found there web site was severely lacking. Lots of looping navigation errors.  The live program was pretty cool though.

Andrew

I thought the software was complicated and I never knew if I had done it right or not.  I think it was uploading, but the readouts were not easy to understand.  It's all still loaded on the computer, but I don't run it anymore.

[wetterdale]

I felt it too in Waterloo, Ontario.  100km west of Toronto.  500km southwest of Ottawa.  This was my first earthquate and it was actually so strong that it couldn't be missed.  We are in a major agricultural zone too.   

Dale

[mackbig]

Ya, everything seemed to be loaded right, but when I logged in to see my "workgroup" or something, it never said anything.  The logs showed uploaded and downloads each day, but never the file that the boinc software was writing, even thought my fake quakes would register in the daily files.  Glad I did not by a dongle for my desktop, but then again I probably would have tried harder....

Andrew

I thought the software was complicated and I never knew if I had done it right or not.  I think it was uploading, but the readouts were not easy to understand.  It's all still loaded on the computer, but I don't run it anymore.

[mackbig]

Around here the only people that did not notice it were walking while it happened, or close to subway or street car line.  It feels surprisingly similar, but longer. Weather segue.... the theater I saw the movie Twister was about 20 yards from the Subway, and the first twister scene a train passed.  It was like smellovision, but with vibration.

And speaking of tornado's there were several outbreaks in south central ontario and northern ontario.  Quite the mother nature day around here.

Andrew

I felt it too in Waterloo, Ontario.  100km west of Toronto.  500km southwest of Ottawa.  This was my first earthquate and it was actually so strong that it couldn't be missed.  We are in a major agricultural zone too.   

Dale

[mackbig]

So this is what happens when you have a high google ranking and the floor starts shaking.  



Of course for the first hour and half all they saw was an old map of quakes in Canada and text that said "There have been no earthquakes in Canada the past 30 days"

Would have been higher if all the news stories and twittering did not clog up the results page.

Andrew