27 November 2017

Rockin' and Rollin'

So ... we had an unusual occurrence this afternoon.

There was an earthquake. That by itself is nothing new. Alaska's had nearly 1,300 quakes since Nov. 12th, so ... ho hum, right?

Except this one was broken into two parts. There was a P-wave, which produced an audible thump (from over 100 miles away) and a bouncing of the floor.

Ten or 15 seconds later, it was followed by an S-wave which shook the buildings from east to west, like sharply jostling a large bowl of Jell-O.

It was only a 5.3 or 5.4 - initial reports disagree - but I've never noticed the two types being so widely separated in a single event.

Just another notch on this Alaskan's belt, I guess.


6 comments:

Toirdhealbheach Beucail said...

Reverend, I am from earthquake country and somehow have managed to sleep through or be out of the country for every one I could have felt. Glad you are okay.

drjim said...

I've noticed that a few times about the earthquakes in SoCal. You'd get the "THUMP!", and then 5~10 seconds later the shaking would start.

Rev. Paul said...

Thanks, TB. The earthquake provisions of the building code are so stringent up here (due to the 9.2-magnitude quake in '64) that a 5.4 is hardly worth mentioning.

Rev. Paul said...

Jim, then I guess we just had a California-style quake. :)

Ed Bonderenka said...

So just ask your wife if the earth moved for her too.

LindaG said...

Glad to hear you are all okay!