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Earthquake shakes South-East England

Q

Queso

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Original poster
Mar 4, 2006
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As if global warming making our weather like California's wasn't bad enough. People in Folkestone were awoken this morning by a tremor registering 4.3 on the Richter Scale. The epicentre, some 7 miles off the coast at Dover, has been responsible for earthquakes before, although you have to go back as far as the 16th century before you get one that caused any real damage.

BBC News
 
This bit of the report made me smile – poor Mrs Smye-Rumsby. :D

Paul Smye-Rumsby, who lives in Dover, said: "It was about 08.15 when suddenly the bed shook violently.

"I thought my wife had got cramp or something..."
 
Jaffa Cake said:
This bit of the report made me smile – poor Mrs Smye-Rumsby. :D

Paul Smye-Rumsby, who lives in Dover, said: "It was about 08.15 when suddenly the bed shook violently.

"I thought my wife had got cramp or something..."
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Haha :D That's golden.

Hope those folks are alright. I've never been in an earthquake
 
I'm quite near to it but didn't feel a thing...then again I didn't feel the one in Dudley a while back. Or hear the explosion in Hemel Hempstead recently, and that was heard in NORWAY! :eek:
 
That's just the thing with earthquakes -- often they are felt more strongly further away from the epicenter. BTW, I thought I was hearing this morning that the official magnitude was 4.7. That's a fairly significant shaker, even by California standards.
 
4.7 are what the Americans are saying.
4.3 are what the Brits are saying.

Some British seismologist expert really sounded like he was trying to play it down on BBC News. Then again I suppose we have so few events like this (heck I didn't even feel the Manchester shudder we had some years back) that a lot of people will be scared so it'll be nice to avoid panic.
 
Well we all know that it was caused by warring dinosaurs deep in the Earths core.
 
I'm in Canterbury, which is north-east of Folkestone/Dover and I felt the tremor. A very noticeable shaking of my building, kinda like having a really heavy lorry drive past quickly (which is what I thought it was at first!).
 
So how did you Brits like your little taste of California weather and an earthquake? :p We actually haven't had an earthquake here in the Los Angeles area for a while now, maybe a year or so? Not a strong enough one that we could feel, of course.
 
zephead said:
So how did you Brits like your little taste of California weather and an earthquake? :p We actually haven't had an earthquake here in the Los Angeles area for a while now, maybe a year or so? Not a strong enough one that we could feel, of course.
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Shush up! Don't you know talk like that can bring them on?
 
raggedjimmi said:
4.7 are what the Americans are saying.
4.3 are what the Brits are saying.
Click to expand...

Jaffa Cake said:
Apparently, the initial estimate was 4.7 but after the earthquake boffins had chance to analyse the data properly they declared it as a 4.3. US reports quoting the initial estimate would explain the discrepancy.
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It's because they use metric. The Metric Richter Scale is different...
 
I heard somewhere that only journalists use the Richter scale to measure strength of earthquakes, because it's the scale everyone is familiar with.

Apparently, geologists and seismologists use some other, more scientific/accurate scale... anyone know more about this or can 'cancel or allow' on this idea?
 
CortexRock said:
I heard somewhere that only journalists use the Richter scale to measure strength of earthquakes, because it's the scale everyone is familiar with.

Apparently, geologists and seismologists use some other, more scientific/accurate scale... anyone know more about this or can 'cancel or allow' on this idea?
Click to expand...

Sounds like you are referring to this:

The moment magnitude scale was introduced in 1979 by Tom Hanks and Hiroo Kanamori as a successor to the Richter scale and is used by seismologists to compare the energy released by earthquakes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moment_magnitude_scale
 
dynamicv said:
As if global warming making our weather like California's wasn't bad enough.
Click to expand...

I must confess though to finding sitting in the local park in the sunshine quite enjoyable though in April... I quite like this side effect of global warming... it's the storms, additional rainfall at the wrong times and not enough at the right times so that all the grass turns yellow that's not quite so good. Will continue buying energy efficient lightbulbs etc...

Wes said:
The moment magnitude scale was introduced in 1979 by Tom Hanks and Hiroo Kanamori as a successor to the Richter scale
Click to expand...

I was impressed by the guy who told us what the earthquakes in the 13th and 16th centuries were on the Richter scale... I mean... how? :confused:
 
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