Earthquakes can strike faster than a New York minute – What to do when the ground shakes…
New York City, with its towering skyscrapers and bustling streets, is probably not the first place people think of when they think about earthquakes. Yet, as surreal as it sounds, earthquakes do rattle New York on occasion and we’re not just talking about in hokey disaster movies. For example, on August 10, 1884, a magnitude 5.2 quake struck near Coney Island, shaking homes, crumbling chimneys, and leaving many confused by what had happened. Would people be any less baffled if a large earthquake struck the city today? Unlike other natural disasters, earthquakes strike without warning (with limited exceptions for a
New USGS map shows where damaging earthquakes are most likely to occur in US
GOLDEN, Colo. Nearly 75 percent of the U.S. could experience damaging earthquake shaking, according to a recent U.S. Geological Survey-led team of 50+ scientists and engineers. This was one of several key findings from the latest USGS National Seismic Hazard Model (NSHM). The model was used to create a color-coded map that pinpoints where damaging earthquakes are most likely to occur based on insights from seismic studies, historical geologic data, and the latest data-collection technologies. The congressionally requested NSHM update was created as an essential tool to help engineers and others mitigate how earthquakes affect the most vulnerable communities by
USGS deploys “aftershock kits” to study Whitehouse Station earthquakes
The team is deploying five “aftershock kits” this week, which will gather information such as where aftershocks originate in the area, how long they last, and their magnitude, said Greg Tanner, a USGS electronics technician assigned to the USGS’s Albuquerque Seismological Laboratory, who is on the team installing kits. This effort is being performed in cooperation with partners at the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University, the Texas Seismological Network at the University of Texas at Austin, Rutgers University, and Yale University, that are also deploying seismic sensors. Aftershocks are smaller earthquakes that occur in the same general area