Maryland Weather: Mini-quake taps Arbutus - Weather forecast: Meteorology and climate conditions in the Baltimore region from reporter Frank Roylance

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October 8, 2007

Mini-quake taps Arbutus

Maybe it was my mother falling out of bed. The US Geological Survey is reporting a very mild earthquake at 8:28 a.m. today, centered 3 miles below the surface, just a mile west-northwest of Arbutus. The USGS put the epicenter just west of the UMBC campus. Here's the seismic record from the Maryland Geological Survey (red squiggles, right center of the chart.)

The tremor measured 1.3 on the Richter Scale, not even enough to be felt unless you're a seismometer. The last time we registered a quake you could feel was on Feb. 23, 2005. That tremor, centered near Dundalk, registered a whopping 2.1 on the the Richter Scale and was felt, or heard in several spots around the city.

There are thousands of these "micro-quakes" each day around the world. If you did happen to feel, or hear this one, or if your dogs went crazy ... leave us a comment.

Here's the report from the USGS on this event. And here are some links to data on Maryland's earthquake history.

Posted by Frank Roylance at 5:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Events

Comments

We heard/felt it at our law office in "downtown" Arbutus. We thought it was either thunder or a big tractor-trailer.

Posted by: Cathy | October 9, 2007 8:33 PM

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About Frank Roylance

Frank Roylance is a reporter for The Baltimore Sun. He came to Baltimore from New Bedford, Mass. in 1980 to join the old Evening Sun. He moved to the morning Sun when the papers merged in 1992, and has spent most of his time since covering science, including astronomy and the weather. One of The Baltimore Sun's first online Web logs, the Weather Blog debuted in October 2004. In June 2006 Frank also began writing comments on local weather and stargazing for The Baltimore Sun's print Weather Page. Frank also answers readers’ weather queries for the newspaper and the blog. Frank Roylance retired in October 2011. Maryland Weather is now being updated by members of The Baltimore Sun staff

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