The Quake Felt by Third of US Population!

had an epicenter less than 5 miles from a DC-area Military Base in Mineral. VA.

It dawned upon me to ponder which quake affected the most people in US, overall?

At first I thought of the 2004 Sumatra quake on Boxing Day or Christmas day for us here in the western hemisphere that was the worst quake in the world for the past 60 years, at 9.3

Second, this July 4th weekend's quakes which were on Independence Day and then the day after, but those 2 main ones so far are only in the 6-7 range.

But Google says its the DC-area quake that was felt by 1/3 of US population (which is the same fraction of Americans left that still are actually employed full-time).

What next, a quake so big that HALF of all US population feels it? Or WORSE? And where, at their capitol again, maybe on some auspicious holiday this time?

It sounds impressive doesn't it ... until you realize that stat mainly only reflects population density, not how strong the actual quake was.

If the quake were strong, they'd say half the country felt it, not merely a third of the population, but you can pack a large percentage of the population into a densely populated space ... say Southern California into the big cities or New York, New Jersey and the Capitol Corridor area and you don't need an especially strong quake for a lot of people to be inside the area that feels it.

Most that same quake out to an epicenter around Yellowstone, and you barely register in percentage of the population who will feel that same quake. Not so impressive when you think about it.

I totally agree - it's all about location and the population density surrounding. If the quake had been a little more north, it might have been 40-50% of the population

Indeed, come to think of it, the Alaska nuclear-induced quake was like nearly 10M, but far away from so many Americans and/or Canadians to feel it.

So what next, a quake so influential that HALF of all US population feels it?

Or WORSE?

Perhaps some entity/ies somewhere are calculating which base to hit from to affect even more people & thier property.

a reply to: letni

I guess the key is the word "effected".

I was in DC when that quake hit. While impressive, the damage was far from biblical. However, that part of the country has a ton of people.

Compared to Haiti or Indonesia with the Tsunami? Not even close.

Wasn't even the big one... just wait