Earthquake?

Yep - felt it on STJ 🙂

Thanks piaa, it's good to hear that I'm not imaging the house rattling! 🙂

Felt a good one tonight and lastn ight. Last night it rattled my house from the foundation. Took me a second to realize what is was.

Yeah, I felt the one an hour ago and a smaller one yesterday.

Here's a fun link:

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Quakes/quakes_all.php

It's a running 7 day list of seismic activity around the world. The one we had tonight has not made it to the list yet. Being a newbie to seismic activity, it will be interesting to become familiar with the tremors. We can have little betting pools, like a "guess the Richter scale" game. The one yesterday felt like a little ripple passing rapidly from west to east. Indeed that's what happened-- the origin was ~25 miles from here and the same from Culebra. I couldn't tell much about direction or location in tonight's tremor, but it lasted longer and felt stronger than yesterday's, which was a 3.5

I bet a lot of cisterns get cracked from all this shakin'. Hmmm, another reminder of "Don't Stop the Carnival"!

Just checked the USGS website and tonight's little shake is now posted. It originated in the same place as yesterday's:

18.651°N, 65.157°W
Depth 25.4 km (15.8 miles)

41 km (25 miles) NW (325°) from CHARLOTTE AMALIE, US Virgin Islands
41 km (26 miles) NNE (22°) from Culebra, PR
45 km (28 miles) NW (321°) from Anna's Retreat, Saint Thomas, US Virgin Islands
91 km (56 miles) ENE (72°) from Carolina, PR

magnitude 3.5

Thanks Jules. I know they're small but I suspect you're right, some cisterns surely suffer.

Here's a link that lists seismic activity for just our area. The page was accessed from a link on the USGS's Puerto Rico station. There's a lot of activity but it's all minor.

http://temblor.uprm.edu/recenteqs/eqs_all.htm

In reading various items on the USGS Puerto Rico site, I came across a long list of things to do in preparation for, during, and after an earthquake. I guess there were some translation problems, to hilarious effect.

During an earthquake:

"2. Ask repeatedly to the Earth to stop shaking."

Hello, Earth? Can you hear me now? Umm, I was just wondering if you would mind stopping that shaking. We're trying to watch a ballgame and you're really f***ing up the TV...

After an earthquake:

"15. Do not go outside for gossip"

Well, I guess that one's not so stupid since more tremors may follow.

Hi Jules.

How about:

Develop a seismic conscience. (I don't join religious cults.)

Use tubes made of flexible materials. (I never go for weird flex-tube sex directly before or after an earthquake.)

Give advice to people with impediments. (No problem, I've been waiting for permission to tell those with impediments that they have too many dedicated parking spots at the front of every parking lot.)

Keep domestic animals inside your home. (Honey, bring in the Senepol cattle.)

Practices maneuvers against earthquakes at your home and/or workplace. (Ah, so earthquakes only occur where folks fail to practice maneuvers against them.)

Wear suitable clothes. (I always wear a clean pair of earthquake panties – just in case.)

http://redsismica.uprm.edu/english/Info/sisnotas_med.php

About 25 years ago a group of eminent seismologists came down to the islands and predicted that within 10 years the Virgin Islands would suffer a major earthquake.

In 1690 a major earthquake hit STT on Sunday April 9th at 4PM. The next memorable earthquake was on November 18, 1867 when the sea receded and then came rushing back causing major devastation.

They come and they go today and most of them you don't even notice. I only got a little bit nervous once many years ago when all my pots and pans were spastically jiggling on the shelves.

I had a much worse time when I had a little roadster and a car behind me would have a HUGE boom-box stereo system pounding out a bass which would have my teeth chattering and my car swaying!

Yes. felt that one this evening. No biggie.

STT Resident,
It is hard for most of us to get our arms around timelines when it comes to EarthQuakes and the planet. The one thing I remember about my Geology courses in College was that if you compressed the Earth's history into a 24hr clock that humans have been on the planet for 8 seconds.
To say there will be a major earthquake in the Virgin Islands in the next one hundred thousand years would really be prediciting one relatively soon.
I lived in Alaska for four years and it was nothing unusual to have Earthquakes in the 5.0-6.0 range. Yesterday was pretty cool since I had not felt an Earthquake in many many years. Cool as long as it is not the Big One!!

Was the quake felt on STX? It didn't mention it in the news. Is STX on the same tutinic plate as STT, STJ, and PR? Isn't it on the other side of the PR trench?

No we are not on the same plate -- different mountain range, I think. We ocassionally feel a shake, but not as often as STT. But we get ash from Monsorrat (sp) and Sahara sand, so we don't feel neglected!

I believe stx is on the caribbean tectonic plate along with the other Antilles. http://www.geo.tu-freiberg.de/~merkel/vorlesung/OS2001/bachmann_raik.pdf

this is a link to an excellent article on caribbean tectonic geology. The Islands do seem to be in an area of lively subduction activity - Wikipedia has an excellent article at