Message #15859

[jim-ratliff]

So Jim, our east coast quake is badder than than a comparable west coast quake.?..
There it is...Jim has thrown down the gauntlet! 

YEPPPP!!  If I yell at 300 decibels from 10 feet away from your ear, it will sound much louder than if I do the same from a mile away.  Simple physics, and attenuation of the concentric force rings as it travels through the conducive medium. 


But this time when the magnitude 5.8 earthquake hit Virginia, it resonated as far north as Toronto. That's partly because the East sits atop rock that is old and "cold," she says, and less able to absorb seismic waves than the malleable, younger rock of the West Coast's active earthquake zone. East Coast quakes, she said, tend to "ring like a bell."