5.9 Earthquake in NEW JERSEY!!!!!

We were all confused on the 7th floor downtown in Columbia. They've been working on replacing the Wachovia sign at the top of the building with a Wells Fargo one today and I kept thinking, "there's no way installing a sign is shaking the building, right?"

 

Definitely felt it in Raleigh, NC. Entire office got on their feet wondering what the heck it was. Wife called from home asking if I felt it.

Floor felt like it was slightly oscilating side to side. Monitors where visibly shaking.

 

I didn't even notice it, I was driving home.

 

interesting how some say they felt it others not. My GF works 30 miles away (much more mountainous terrain) and felt NOTHING.

Any Geologists that can offer an explanation as to earthquake wave transmittal over distance and varying effects that terrain will have? I imagine these waves do not travel well through sand - but travel very well through bedrock or hard materials . . . .

 

Last time we had a heartquake my rock work fell, this time it stay in place

 

My wife works in NYC and her building was doing the shimmy..they are clearing out parts of downtowm Manhatten(some old un safe buildings in that area)I was down the boat yard in Staten Island with my brother and felt nothing.but other people further in the middle of Staten Island felt and seen everything moving..

 

It was felt on the 20th deck (floor) of the building I work in in downtown Cleveland.

 

Incorrect as far as I understand it. Less resistance from sand. Areas with sand, or fill, tend to be the worst hit (liquefaction). The Marina District in SF was hardest hist in the 89 quake due to being built on fill, like a lot of NYC is.

 

I parked and felt my car shaking. I was very confused, so I got out an was touching my car like "*** is this thing shaking for?". I didn't really feel it in my legs at all. It wasn't until a minute later when I realized that everyone was outside and walked over that someone said it was a quake.

What about when there's a setup like epicenter > sand > bedrock?

 

I think that's more the "propagation" of the waves which would make sand hard hit.

When you jump on the sand next to someone there are hundreds of millions of grains which work in concert to dissipate a lot of the kinetic energy - they will feel very little of the original energy and will hear some of the dissipation through the rubbing of interlocking grains.

When you jump on a tree limb, bed (not a tempurpedic!), or trampoline, because everything is connected (like it would be with dense or hard bedrock) the energy is transmitted without a ton of destructive interference - hence the person sitting on the limb, bed or what-have-you will feel more of the transmitted KE than the person sitting on sand.

I do not feel as though a less-dense medium (sand) would transmit the waves very well whereas it has a lot of room to discharge the horizontal and vertical components of the KE generated by the quake among all of the interlocking, but not physically attached grains.

I agree that once a wave has been propagated in this medium (sandy) then the structural stability is nill compared to harder sub-surfaces.

So I do not dis-agree with you at all - I think we are addressing separate issues . . . .