Thursday, July 4, 2019

Pretty Hellacious Earthquake Here...



















Developing...

Shook moderately hard here for 30-40 seconds, got bigger as it went. Probably a lot bigger somewhere else than here. Lasted almost a minute, all tolled.
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6.6  6.4 per USGS (For reference, the Northridge Quake was ultimately listed as a 6.7.)
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Near Ridgecrest, BFE out in the Mojave Desert.
Halfway from LA to Vegas, and north.
Fort Irwin and China Lake probably got the f**k rattled out of it.

















The epicenter was 10.72 miles from the center of the runways at China Lake NWS, on a bearing of 82.72°, according to GoogleEarth. USGS puts the coordinates at 35.7052N, and 117.506W.
Right in the middle of a big dirt nothing.
It's about 11 miles from the town center of Ridgecrest, and about 400 yards from the nearest building at China Lake.
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That's over 100 mi. from where I'm sitting.
The people close to that are going to be in some major doo-doo, and definitely in need of a fresh set of underwear.
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I tried to post a report on the USGS "Did You Feel It?" site, because it helps them get an idea of where and how strong it was beyond raw seismograph data, but it was locked up (from traffic, most likely), which is never a good sign.
According to the interactive shake map, it was felt by people from Phoenix AZ to Chico CA, which is about halfway from Sacramento to the Oregon state line.
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It's good that this was in such a lightly populated to virtually uninhabited area.
(Still waiting for any reports of any local casualties.)
If this had been, say, right under downtown L.A., with acres of pre-1933 construction masonry buildings, it would probably be a body count in the three- to five-figure range by tomorrow.
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22 comments:

Monsoon Matriarch said...

Thanks for adding. Glad you are doing OK. Had me worried for a few minutes.I lived in SF for the 89 Loma Prieta quake, so I know it can be rather disorienting.

Aesop said...

Just riding the S-waves here.
For over a minute.
But it wouldn't stop, and kept getting stronger.

Not bad enough here to get under anything, but whispered a prayer for whoever was sitting on the bullseye.

The cat is under the bed, looking a little sketchy.

Anonymous said...

Best, Aesop, and Happy Independence Day!

Old NFO said...

Glad they were S-waves not P-waves... Loma Prieta was NOT fun!

Anonymous said...

Thankfully it was a relatively uninhabited area.
Glad you are safe.
I am also so happy my niece moved back to the midwest from LA.

Unknownsailor said...

Really not a lot out there, except desert. Loooots of desert.

NAWS China Lake is right there, though. I wonder how they are doing.

Aesop said...

I haven't looked at details, but it was probably aboard the China Lake range.

Will said...

What I found interesting is that it was not on a major fault line, but on one of the minor ones running NE from LA towards Vegas. Does this increase or decrease the chances of "the big one" hitting LA or SF (where I live)?

Anonymous said...

China Lake is sending out automated alerts, warnings not to enter buildings until they're inspected, etc. Will be interesting come Monday.

Aesop said...

"Minor" fault lines create mountain ranges, over time.
All the Northridge fault line did was make a 100' bump in the San Fernando Valley...until the morning it went off.

Caffeineforge said...

I grew up in Ridgecrest. My mom still lives there. It was strong, but everything in her neighborhood is still standing and all of her neighbors are okay. Just things fallen off walls and shelves.

Related (From the Northridge Aftershock days): https://youtu.be/8k8f2gJjXkQ

Unknown said...

It lasted about 30 seconds here in north OC. Slow rolling building to a good shake then tapering for about 20 more seconds. USGS was locked out when I tried to post to DYFI within the minute.

Since the 90s, const companies have made it a specialty to upgrade unreinforced masonry. Even the Missions are upgraded.

Rick

Angantyr said...

Very minor shaking here in the South Bay. Bookshelves creaked a bit, and the kids didn't even notice until I mentioned it.

Anonymous said...

Lemoore, calif. Got hit felt like a wave to us. Maybe 2.0 to 3.0 for effect.
Heltau

Jim said...

Generally we don't get big ones here in east Kansas, but if the New Madrid fault cuts loose again, all bets are off.

Allen said...

I happened to be in Ridgecrest picking up some supplies when it hit. I'm about 20 miles away. I figured at first my old ranch truck badly needs a new front end, then I noticed all the cars in the parking lot rockin' and rollin'. The aftershocks are really getting old. My horses have been having a self-rodeo about every hour.

I have heard of no major injuries, or deaths. There have been a small number of fires. The next time someone complains about building codes and building permits, remember that.

Unknown said...

Y'all should know that a 3.0 is like a loaded tandem dump truck passing by.

I was visiting Cal Tech watching the seismographs. Every now and then there was a 3.0, 3.1 and so. I called it out to the seismologist. She said those are trucks on the nearby road. Actually, they were double bottom dump transfer rigs for a nearby construction project but I don't expect everyone of 'all to know what a transfer rig is.

Rick

FredLewers said...

Trust wildlife and house pets to tell the truth. Animals don't know how to lie. Neither do children until their parents teach them...
When I see wildlife getting sketchy in east texas,I check the weather band for tornado warnings

Aesop said...

The problem with that is the cat wasn't hiding until after the quake.
If I could get the fat furball to ring the patented Earthquake Warning before it hit, I could retire on the royalties.

Anonymous said...

Last one I felt was Loma Prieta and believe me, I felt it plenty. Glad to be out of the area.
Thoughts and prayers for the good folk out there; too bad earthquakes don't discriminate, I'd like to see some CA commies get the wicked witch treatment.
BG

Will said...

Shame the USGS was asleep at the switch 10 YEARS prior to the Loma Prieta quake. They were surprised to find that a quake could liquify Fill ground.

That action was demonstrated around '79 in a South Bay quake. I watched an empty blacktop parking lot transform into a credible imitation of a body of water as waves continued to roll through it. Sunnyvale, a block off of hy237 near Lawrence Exprwy. Most of the Bay Area is Fill. If it's flat and near water level, it's Fill. The Bay itself used to be about twice the surface area it has now.

Loma Prieta quake of '89, in Milpitas, same waves in another parking lot. Watched cars bouncing off the pavement this time. I was sitting inside a bookstore, but the falling books got to be annoying, so I stumbled outside, bouncing off the shelving as I went.

By then, I was so used to quakes that it was only the books falling around me that got me off the floor and out the door. Heck, in the earlier one I only walked outside because the computer and I were moving too much to input the order I was taking. I suspect that familiarity with lesser quakes tends to make most people blase about the coming Big One(tm).

One of the women in the office had a husband that was a sponsored Flat-Track Racer. Guy thought nothing about sticking his foot down at 130mph and pitching his Harley sideways on a mile dirt track. She got home and found him packing to leave CA, and he did, moving back to the Midwest. She followed a couple weeks later. We worked in Rocky Cycle, and he was one of our racers. I had to laugh when I found out he was moving back to the area that got hit with that giant quake in ~1811 that shifted the Mississippi River by miles, and was felt in NYFC.

Unknown said...

Forget the furry animals. Its the birds you should be paying attention to. They stop singing and chirping long seconds before any shaking. And they either all hop into the air enmasse or they all take shelter and none flying in the air.

Rick