earthquake???

[fulltlt]

Did we just have an earthquake? I woke up at 4:00 a.m. here 40 miles west of Chicago to feel the whole house shaking.

[infool7]

Yep, it shook for a good minute hear in Batavia.

[Viiksitimali]

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsus/Maps/US10/37.47.-95.-85_eqs.php

[taraytarah]

I knew I’d find it here first. What’s a good site to see it registered?

[She hits a grand slam tonight]

Are you kidding, this is the best site for news.

[Yossarian]

WBBM reports the epicenter is 48 miles west of Chicago, magnitude 4.3.

[Yossarian]

WBBM reports the epicenter was at the Maple Park and Sycamore area.

[Rocky]

Thanks for that link.

Magnitude: 4.3

Location is west of Chicago

[Recovering_Democrat]

obama’s fault. and I do mean “fault”. get it?? :-D

[21twelve]

Only 8 miles from the epicenter - but still you were “lucky” to feel it at only a 4.3. I’m surprised it woke you up, probably fairly soft soils in your area?

[taraytarah]

Dang, you were right at about the epicenter.

[Troublemaker]

Earthquake Details

Magnitude

4.3

Date-Time

Wednesday, February 10, 2010 at 09:59:34 UTC

Wednesday, February 10, 2010 at 03:59:34 AM at epicenter Location 41.978°N, 88.597°W Depth 5 km (3.1 miles) set by location program

Region ILLINOIS Distances 6 km (4 miles) WNW (292°) from Virgil, IL 8 km (5 miles) E (94°) from Sycamore, IL 8 km (5 miles) N (1°) from Maple Park, IL 14 km (8 miles) ENE (67°) from DeKalb, IL 35 km (22 miles) NW (315°) from Aurora, IL 77 km (48 miles) WNW (282°) from Chicago, IL

from - usgs.gov

[Halgr]

My First Thought.

Is God delivering a tap on the door?

;-)

[21twelve]

It was about the same depth as the one in Haiti. But MUCH weaker. Haiti was about a 7.0 IIRC. But is log scale. 4.0 to 5.0 is 10x larger. 4.0 to 6.0 is 100x larger. 4.0 to 7.0 is 1000x larger! (Off to quick check those numbers!)

[BobbyT]

Felt it here too.

We’re trading on the 7th floor of a 12 or 14 floor office building near Schaumburg, and our chairs and monitors were swaying a bit around 4am.

[21twelve]

Shoot - I think I got that log scale wrong. One glance at a site had a 7.0 was 100x larger than a 6.0. Here’s a table with some comparisons to TNT yield. (I don’t suppose there is anything near you that could go BOOM and give the yield of a small nuclear weapon??)

Richter TNT for Seismic Example
Magnitude Energy Yield (approximate)

-1.5 6 ounces Breaking a rock on a lab table
1.0 30 pounds Large Blast at a Construction Site
1.5 320 pounds
2.0 1 ton Large Quarry or Mine Blast
2.5 4.6 tons
3.0 29 tons
3.5 73 tons
4.0 1,000 tons Small Nuclear Weapon
4.5 5,100 tons Average Tornado (total energy)
5.0 32,000 tons
5.5 80,000 tons Little Skull Mtn., NV Quake, 1992
6.0 1 million tons Double Spring Flat, NV Quake, 1994
6.5 5 million tons Northridge, CA Quake, 1994
7.0 32 million tons Hyogo-Ken Nanbu, Japan Quake, 1995; Largest Thermonuclear Weapon
7.5 160 million tons Landers, CA Quake, 1992
8.0 1 billion tons San Francisco, CA Quake, 1906
8.5 5 billion tons Anchorage, AK Quake, 1964
9.0 32 billion tons Chilean Quake, 1960
10.0 1 trillion tons (San-Andreas type fault circling Earth)

[rdl6989]

Here’s a link to a site (in .pdf format) showing a map of faults in northern Illinois.

http://www.isgs.uiuc.edu/research/earthquake-hazards/pdf-files/eq-fct-nrth.pdf

[fulltlt]

I calculated the straight line distance using the epicenter coordinates posted here and my coordinates from my home waypoint in my GPS. I am 15 miles from the epicenter.

[infool7]

Thanks for the info. When I first checked the USGS site there wasn’t anything, by the time I finished filling out the earthquake report and refreshed FR there was a post already. Amazing!

[MinuteGal]

It woke me up here in Downers Grove. I'm on the fourth (top) floor of a condo building that rocked and rolled for about a half minute. Then it sounded like a couple of huge metal balls were rolling around on the roof over my head. I got out of the bedroom quickly and am now in another room typing.

The weight of the enormous amount of snow on our building's flat roof plus a huge HVAC unit overhead is giving me pause.

Need some coffee, quick.

It's a few minutes before 5 AM here in the western suburbs of Chicago. The epicenter appears to be not too far west of me. Yikes!

Leni