Thursday, April 15, 2010

Shake, rattle and roll!

I was in another earthquake today.
A 4.9 quake hit here in Utah just before six pm. I was catching a quick nap before starting in on some projects, and felt three distinct wiggles. The cats weren't on the bed so I knew it had to be an earthquake.

Is it normal to be so familiar with earthquakes that now I don't even bound to my computer to see what the magnitude was?

Gee...just look at that quake map.
It seem like it was just days ago that I was riding out the biggie 7.2 in San Diego; Utah's tiny red marked 4.9 seems puny by comparison.
Hardly up to San Diego aftershock standards!

But what with the Iceland volcano and China's big quake, I am glad that Utah's "big one" didn't happen here today.

Anyone want to take a guess who gets the next major shake?
(Take a peek at THIS page to see what area seems a bit seismically blank....)
I'm going with Oregon. There have been a lot of little tremors off Oregon's coast lately.
Make sense to think it is winding up for a good one.

On the other hand, there's this quote from the LA Times article:

...researchers say there has been an uptick in earthquakes this year.
The number of earthquakes greater than magnitude 4.0 in Southern California and Baja California has increased significantly in 2010.
There have been 70 such quakes so far this year, the most of any year in the last decade.
And it's only April.
There were 30 in 2009 and 29 in 2008.

From THIS article.

Not to worry though. There are scientist all over the web spilling elaborate mathematical formulas that show the earthquake rate continues well within norm, which they state is a major earthquake (over a 5) somewhere in the world every two days.

All I can say is: If the scientist's math starts to show that more and more quakes are happening, and happening at a rate outside the norm, then they had better speak up real fast.

Meanwhile I'll keep checking the real time shake map regularly on my own.

Scientists: The same folk who once believed that all planets revolve in the same direction as their sun. They just found out that there are planets out there who are spinning in the opposite directions of their sun. According to Physics and Mathematics that is not supposed to be possible.

Call me a science skeptic if you wish.

I just think most scientist forget to figure in things that I do, like the one Whose Ways are Not Our Ways: The Creator of the whole shebang Himself.

5 comments:

myletterstoemily said...

good grief! how many earthquakes
can a body take before they are
just shakes?

ellen b. said...

I like to go with the one who created the whole shebang...too.
Have a great weekend Jill...
my kids really enjoyed SLC especially Park city and they went out to that island on salt Lake.

Islandsparrow said...

I notice our little area of the map is blank. I don't think we'ver ever had an earthquake although Quebec has had one - and they are only about a day and half drive away.

There does seem to be a lot of them lately doesn't there.

L&D said...

I was just thinking when I heard about China's earthquake, how insane it is how many BIG ones already hit this year. I agree though, we must not forget The Big Man On Campus. He has the final say. I look forward to meeting Him one day and this all making sense.

Lovella ♥ said...

I saw that you were shaking down there .. .I thought you might be spared inland. It's funny how I percieve where earthquakes take place.
I wasnt' at all pleased to see your prediciton of Oregon being struck .. I'm thinking I'm nearly done with camping here.. . but we will venture out to long beach today .. and hope for a shakeless day.