Earthquake Rocks U.S.

A huge earthquake hit my former state of Virginia today. I actually first got the news from a writer of ours on CleanTechnica. he lives in Queens, New York and felt it there. Sent me a follow-up email telling me it was in Virginia. I though, “Oh My! That’s a big one.” Followed very quickly by, “Oh My! I hope everyone I know in Virginia is OK.”

The USGS is currently reporting that this earthquake was a magnitude 5.8. You can see in the map here that it was in between Charlottesville and Richmond, Virginia.

Apparently, the earthquake was felt about as far away as Ottawa. Pretty shocking how powerful earthquakes are.

No injuries have been reported, from what I’ve read, and two nuclear reactors in the area immediately shut off, automatically, around the time of the earthquake.

Cell phone service got jammed, though, as people feverishly tried calling family and friends. Twitter and Facebook also blew up with commentary from those experiencing it. Here’s an interesting note from @allisonkilkenny of The Nation that USA Today noticed: “Weirdest moment: Seeing the people I’m following in DC tweet ‘earthquake’ seconds before I felt it here in NYC.” I bet.

The quake was one of the largest in Virginia’s known earthquake history. The fact that it was only 0.6 miles deep is largely responsible for it’s wide range of influence.

“Central Virginia does get its share of minor earthquakes, but an earthquake of this size on the East Coast is certainly very unusual,” says seismologist Karen Fischer of Brown University.