LA Quake

A 5.8 in the Chino Hills. Hope our house in Redondo Beach is all right. I suspect it is–it’s about forty miles away. I just hope it’s not a foreshock of something bigger.

[Update a few minutes later]

Let me be the first to say that it’s Bush’s fault. Or some fault out there…

And I expect Al Gore to blame global warming any minute.

[Update at 3:35 PM EDT]

Now I’m hearing that it’s been downgraded to a 5.4.

9 thoughts on “LA Quake”

  1. I felt the quake 100 miles away in San Diego.
    My Father, much closer in Long Beach said it shook pretty hard, but no damage there.

    Paul

  2. We felt the quake and a few aftershocks in Mojave. No damage but we did evacuate the hangar for about ten minutes.
    And a few minutes later the Rocket Racer flew at AirVenture in Oshkosh, WI. Interesting day!

  3. Earthquake magnitudes are logarithmic so the difference between a 5.8 and a 5.4 is actually very substantial (about a factor of 4 difference in energy release).

  4. global seismic activity on Earth is now five times more energetic than it was just 20 years ago. …increasing very fast since 1990

    The beginning of the ‘pangs of distress’ or is Yellowstone about to belch?

    Earth as a whole absorbs at least 0.85 Megawatt per square kilometer more energy from the Sun than it is able to radiate back to space

    This doesn’t seem right. Is it even possible for a body not to radiate an equal amount to what it receives?

  5. My wife’s uncle, a native Californian, used to swear that hot, calm weather was “Earthquake Weather”. If that’s the case, Bush is to blame.

    GWB is, after all is said and done, the sole cause of global warming. Not to mention, high gas prices, mortgage defaults, unemployment and gum disease.

  6. This doesn’t seem right. Is it even possible for a body not to radiate an equal amount to what it receives?
    Transiently, yes. For example, the material near the Earth’s surface (specifically, the water in the oceans) has nonzero thermal inertia. It takes time for it to warm to a new equilibrium, and during that time there is net flow of energy into the material. Conservation of energy tells us that during that time, energy received will exceed energy radiated.

  7. “My wife’s uncle, a native Californian, used to swear that hot, calm weather was “Earthquake Weather”. If that’s the case, Bush is to blame.

    FWIW, the last two major earthquakes in Southern California occurred in winter: Sylmar (February, 1970), Northridge (January, 1994).

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