Colorado Quake Startles Residents, Damages Some Homes
A midnight Colorado quake, the strongest natural temblor to hit the state in more than a century, woke startled residents on Monday night.
According to experts in the field, the 5.7 magnitude earthquake, which struck at 11:46pm just outside of the southern city of Trinidad, CO, could be felt from Denver to the borders of Kansas and New Mexico.
While Colorado, with its mix of mountains and plains, sits astride a seismically stable part of the nation where quakes aren’t that common, the area around the city of Trinidad is regularly hit by temblors as a result of a local fault zone, but the majority of them are relatively small, USGS National Earthquake Information Center geophysicist Julie Dutton explained.
“It’s a seismically active area so it’s not unheard of that you would have an earthquake in this area,” Dutton told Reuters Tuesday morning from Golden, Colorado. “But to have a 5.3 anywhere in Colorado, let alone in this area, is rare.”
Dutton went on to say that even though the state of Colorado has experienced several earthquakes similar to Monday’s size in recent decades — a magnitude 5.3 near Denver in 1967 and a magnitude 5.7 in the state’s northwest corner in 1973 — both of those quakes were ultimately resultant from the activities of humans.
The 5.7 earthquake, though severe by Colorado standards, did not cause any major destruction or injuries save for some minor structural damage at homes near the epicenter and minor damages to highways nearby.
The last known natural event of comparable size was an earthquake in 1882 in what is now Rocky Mountain National Park, several hours northwest of Denver. That quake, based on historical reports, was about a magnitude 6.5, Ms. Dutton said.
The late night Colorado temblor is just one of a recent string of rare earthquakes to strike the United States, as earlier this afternoon, a 5.9 quake hit the east coast forcing the Pentagon and Capital buildings to be evacuated as a result.
via NY Times
Tags : 2011 colorado earthquake, 5.7 earthquake colorado, colorado earthquake, colorado quake, earthquakes, kanas earthquake, midnight earthquake colorado, midwest earthquake, new mexico earthquake, southern colorado earthquake, trinidad colorado earthquake
Posted: August 23, 2011
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Aug 23, 2011
Hmmmm
Aug 23, 2011
what do you mean pm on aug 23? its not 11 pm yet, not even in ny?
Aug 23, 2011
East Coast and now Colorado…OHOH!
Aug 23, 2011
BIG WOOP AS LONG AS WE DOn't GET 1.
Aug 23, 2011
2 Quakes 24 hours apart that's scary.
Aug 23, 2011
the most amazing part of this story is that a MIDNIGHT quake struck at 11:46 a.m.
Aug 23, 2011
TWO SHAKE LESS THEN 24HOURS THAT SCAREY.
Aug 23, 2011
How is it that this quake is the largest in a "century" when you have one about 30 years ago?
Aug 23, 2011
that is just a shake and bake here in calil.
Aug 23, 2011
Umm..This was in the NY Times and they can't even the date or time right? I am not confident, but I am pretty sure editors are paid for a living….right?
Aug 24, 2011
I was sitting on my couch when I felt the quake. this being my first one, I was convinced a ghost was shaking my couch, no joke.
Aug 24, 2011
2012 is coming! run bitches!
Aug 24, 2011
HAARP caused all this.
Aug 24, 2011
Natural and, unfortunately, avoidable man-made disasters, are becoming too frequent for comfort.Could these incidents be the precursor of the much-publicized Apocalypsis? If it is not an earthquake in Haiti today, it is a nuclear accident in Japan tomorrow or a civil or religious war in Libya or the Middle East the day after.Pray, is mankind not heading for extermination?
Aug 24, 2011
It is not only pandemics like malaria, HIV/AIDS, hepatitis and cancers that have defied a solution, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, nuclear waste accidents and other environmental hazards are claiming more lives in the long run than all ailments ever known in the history of mankind.It is hightime man stopped saving species of fauna and flora from going into extinction and shift the spotlight to his threatened kind that has scores of life-threatening enemies to contend with.
Aug 24, 2011
Bah MD's was bigger. Lol
Aug 24, 2011
yo Colorado I'ma let u finish but Maryland had the biggest freak quake of all time
Aug 24, 2011
warning sign of the 2012 propecy bs? I doubt it.
Aug 24, 2011
It happened on Monday and the following morning (yesaterday) it hits the East coast. Media didn't pick the story that much as they were only concentrating on the EC.
Aug 24, 2011
It happened on Monday and the following morning (yesaterday) it hits the East coast. Media didn't pick the story that much as they were only concentrating on the EC.
Aug 24, 2011
Virginia had a quake in the afternoon, California that same night, and Colorado at midnight.