Virginia quake seismic waves march across the US

Seismometers from the EarthScope project Transportable Array measured the up-and-down motion of the ground from the magnitude 5.9 earthquake that occurred in Virginia on August 23, 2011. You can see the waves move across the country! Red is upward motion; blue down. The height of the wave was only 22 microns!

Original data: http://www.iris.edu/spud/gmv/109962

Credit: Data from the TA network were made freely available as part of the EarthScope USArray facility supported by the National Science Foundation, Major Research Facility program under Cooperative Agreement EAR-0350030.

• Category

  Science & Technology

[davenquinn]

The density of sensors in the middle is because the array is slowly moving across the country, west to east. We're essentially doing a complete seismic survey over a period of about 20 years using a fifth of the seismometers that would otherwise be required.

[MarcJX8P]

Wow, that is amazing. It's interesting to see how the shockwave seems to keep reverberating longer in certain coastal regions than others.

[davenquinn]

@neilpquinn0 What is that supposed to mean, anyway, sir? I will not have aspersions cast against my professionalism...

[Neil P. Quinn]

Bad geology, Daven, bad geology. 

[MrTyler515]

is it me or does the flahy colors make u feel like youre on serious drugs!!!!!!!!!

[ecshome]

Simply amazing that we can measure such a minut movement of the earth. 

[ecshome]

Simply amazing that we can measure such a minut movement of the earth. 

[AlternateLonestar]

That's weird. I didn't feel a thing on the Gulf Coast.

[astrophonix]

Sightly off-topic, but an important skeptic issue. A 'paranormal' group in Colorado are trying to silence criticism of their 'ghost-hunting' scam which has led to them being banned from the Evergreen graveyard which they have desecrated. They are trying now to suppress a video by a false DMCA notice even though they don't have any rights to the content. Please help. Details here: watch?v=2dfkGFz5iFU&feature=fe­edu

[pocoapoco2]

Never mind. I was thinking nanometers not microns. I had one of those brain air releases. 22µm is almost one thousandth of an inch. It sure is moving pretty speedily. Looks to be about 5-6 miles/second.

[pocoapoco2]

What I don't understand is how such a small amplitude wave isn't lost in noise generated by a host of other sources.

[lx45803]

Oh no! Maybe the next one will make waves 40 microns tall!