Earthquake@home

Experience earthquakes live, in your own living room! No need to travel anywhere!

We just now (8:35 p.m. on Feb. 1) had a 5.1-5.3 (the numbers differ a little) centered essentially 118km directly beneath our house. I would call it a "shindo 2" on the Japanese scale. Mayumi thought it was a bus going past, but it was strong enough to give the girls a pretty good fright. I would guess it lasted about ten seconds.

Man, I love Hi-net. Real-time info.

I post these not because they frighten me (though the bigger ones do give me an adrenalin rush, this didn't), but because they fascinate me. There was a point in time when I considered becoming a geologist. A Caltech roommate and I used to sneak into Mudd, where they kept the remote seismographs, when we thought we felt something. This real-time web mapping is very cool, but there's something visceral about that wiggling needle on the scroll of paper.

I don't grok the sphere/circle info in the lower right hand corner of the picture...