4.3 quake shakes up East Texas

4.3 quake shakes up East Texas

Date-Time: Thursday, May 17, 2012 @ 08:12:01 UTC

Earthquake location: 31.902°N, 94.332°W,

Earthquake depth: 5.0 km

Distances:
5km (3mi) E of Timpson, Texas
45km (27mi) NE of Nacogdoches, Texas
52km (32mi) ESE of Henderson, Texas
71km (44mi) S of Marshall, Texas
343km (213mi) WNW of Baton Rouge, Louisiana

hisz.rsoe.hu...

There you go, this is a 4.6 in the same area but there is also a 4.3. Go look at the alert map.

Not a very big earthquake but isn't it unusual in that area?

Oh yea? Well I hear in Alaska they had a 4.8......and Texas is smaller than Alaska, just like their earthquakes....

Seriously, what is the point? Nothing more to add?

A quake thread for 2012 already exists Here

Would be much more efficient than starting a thread with nothing more than a comment.....unless you wanted to share more?

reply to post by kennvideo


Last quake they had ...what a week ago... Ended up shaking things up in Indiana and Oklahoma. REALLY hope things settle and not get crazy today.

Thanks OP..... While I love Quakewatch not all ATS ers do so I think its great you brought this one to the forum.

I saw this on my quake watch, seen here

quakes.globalincidentmap.com...

Hopefully nobody was hurt. three more days till the 20th so maybe just maybe we'll get a rumble or not. just have to wait and see.

I live down here in SE TX. There was another one last Thursday. I think it was a 3.7 (without looking it up)... We are in the East TX Basin and the last earthquakes were in 1964 right in the town that I live in. I wasn't alive then.. so have no personal experience with what was going on then. But NOW...
There are MASSIVE amounts of new oil and gas drilling and crap going on in this area. That was in Shelby county; (Timpson, area)... and I have seen the maps of the drilling sites as I work as a cartographer in a different field that requires that the 'physical' locations of these places are recorded.
There are hundreds of these facilities going up, at such a fast pace! I am very concerned about this once beautiful part of East Texas Forest country and what they are doing to it.
I try to let people know, they all say NO, it's not the drilling or the fracking....etc...
It's the removal of something that is IN the ground for a reason ... I don't know. I have my opinion.
But, yes... I am concerned about the future of this area, if not for all the 'other' earth change problems.. but from this activity that is so close to home. I'm about 60 miles south of this location and haven't felt either one of them. But for Texas to have earthquakes is sooo rare, even as small as others think these are, they're pretty scary for us!


OH, and the most news I've heard so far about injuries??? LOL! No one was hurt, except one person claiming they fell out of bed... Unless she's really old or has some sort of fragile bone disease; I think she just might be looking for her 15 mins of fame??? but, I can't say for sure of course... it's new news after all
Here's a link to the local news.
www.kltv.com...

have not ever heard of earthquakes in Texas, fracking and tornadoes yes,
have not seen earthquakes there before, so must be rare for the state and the Ozarks region may have been and noticed more, seismic and Geo-thermal activity

reply to post by EdwynaGolden


fracking and extraction of natural and/or oil and gas, be my first as the root of the problem, isn't their laws in Texas that can do a citizen arrest when you see a crime and file charges on them for fracking and other environmental infractions, in each county?

reply to post by earthinhabitant


Might not of been an actual earthquake, coulda been chilli cook off night....Texas makes some mean chilli.

IMO probably due to fracking...the new madrid fault is further east other side of Norleans at the mouth of the ole miss going straight up to missurra.

reply to post by GrandHeretic


I disagree, so start a thread and we can discuss it there, as my notion is one thread for all the earthquakes, is foolish, so see you in the thread, no need to reply here and go off topic and hijack it, as think we will name this one after you, to give it some personality

What is important, in my opinion, about this quake is that it is in a spot that doesn't usually get quakes, a few miles from last week's 3-something quake. It means that this unusual location is starting to have quakes that are getting bigger. Remember, this is near the western border of Louisiana, which is unusual if you look at the area's seismic history and the quake today was the third largest in East Texas history. Two stronger quakes happened in 1957 & 1964. That was a long time ago and considering this wasn't big by most people's standards, it just goes to show that this is an unusual location.

My concern here is whether or not these quakes may indicate that there could be activity starting in the general area of the New Madrid and the fault lines that run off of it like little tributaries, not that this was a New Madrid quake. Still, we have to see that it is interesting to have quakes in this area that are increasing in size and weren't that far apart (7 days). Damage occurred with this one and it was widely felt across a greater area. Other quake sites even say that there were 2 separate quakes today, a 4.3 & a 4.6 some 5 miles apart, but that is not being confirmed by the USGS.

www.ksla.com...
news.blogs.cnn.com...

reply to post by mountaingirl1111


yes, quake trending is what have been concerned with as well, and fracking and water tables drying up, making this planet, much more fragile, as oil is the lubricant and natural gas the compression that has kept it as it has been for years and now got leaches living off of it and consuming it at a rate that it cannot replenish, so nothing new here, other than this being new region for seismic action, something very important, anywhere on the planet, or continent and state...not known for quakes in this region and location...

consider it isnt as much a empty space issue rather than a weight issue.....the earths crust usually maintains a certain weight structure keeping it from falling about due to instability. Many a earthquake has been contributed to too much or not enough weight where it used to be, or pooled up into.

China is a fine example of what happens when you build a dam where you shouldn't...an earthquake was caused by the weight of the water. The one you speak of may have been caused by loss of weight in a certain area where there used to be weight. As you so clearly point out.

NTA: The original post just kinda proves my point....it was a shallow quake to begin with. Most frack quakes are at that depth or less. Your fault quakes are gonna have more tug going with the shift of the enviroment that causes them. These deposits are much more deep than 5k

There, I contributed......

www.forestargroup.com...

The above link shows some information about the location of the Basin.

I'm 43 years old... have lived in Ft Worth area my entire life, until I moved down here to SETX 9 years ago. I have never felt an earthquake... they are super rare. I think this shouldn't be 'piled' up in a larger earthquake forum due to the rarity. Is there another thread here on ATS that compiles all of the super rare earthquakes??



www.lib.utexas.edu...

Seismic Potential of East Texas Faults

East Texas faults share numerous indicators of low seismic risk. Normal displacements
ensure that stresses are neutralized by tensile fracture at low stresses because the
tensile strength of materials is generally much lower than their compressive strength.
Furthermore, almost all these faults are related to slow gravitational creep of salt and its
sedimentary overburden rather than to movement of lithospheric plates. Moreover, future
movement on the Mexia-Talco Fault Zone is extremely unlikely because undeformed
Pleistocene terraces cross them (Turk, Kehle and Associates, 1978). Similarly, only a few
central-basin faults extend upward to the Lower Tertiary stratigraphic units exposed at
the surface.
The Mount Enterprise Fault Zone is the least understood zone in East Texas because
of poor subsurface information. At least one seismic profile indicates that it, like the
Mexia-Talco Fault Zone, is based in the Louann Salt, which suggests that the Mount
Enterprise Fault Zone is also related to salt creep, indicating a low seismic potential.
Nevertheless, a compelling reason for detailed study of the Mount Enterprise Fault Zone
is the prevalence of microseismic tremors in this area, a notable example being the
Jacksonville earthquake of November 6, 1981, which had a Richter intensity of 3.5 to 4.0.
Microseismic activity in the East Texas Basin is currently being monitored (Pennington
and others, 1981).

I think Mike says here www.abovetopsecret.com... my thoughts the best.

When man seeks out his own fortune rather than the Earths there is a problem. Our planet cannot take this type of selfishness.... and it shows.

Originally posted by GrandHeretic
Oh yea? Well I hear in Alaska they had a 4.8......and Texas is smaller than Alaska, just like their earthquakes....

Seriously, what is the point? Nothing more to add?

A quake thread for 2012 already exists Here

Would be much more efficient than starting a thread with nothing more than a comment.....unless you wanted to share more?

not everyone goes to quakewatch everyday. i LIKE unusual quakes to be posted here because if it wasn't i'd never know about it. a california quake of this size posted here would be silly. TX doesn't get quakes so i think this is worthy of it's own post ESPECIALLY since we just had one which makes it even more weird.

edit: i realize now that i was being repetitive after other posts.... i got kind of irritated and posted before seeing others felt the same way.

we do have a good amount of fracking going on here. it's very shocking to have a quake in texas. i worry that all this weird quake activity is leading up to something big in the new madrid area.

Originally posted by pasiphae
we do have a good amount of fracking going on here. it's very shocking to have a quake in texas. i worry that all this weird quake activity is leading up to something big in the new madrid area.

You are definitely not alone. I too am concerned. All I worry about is not being able to get to my kids. That in itself is a nightmare to think about with any given situation.

Originally posted by MamaJ..........All I worry about is not being able to get to my kids.........

...........my concerns also...........PEACE!

Please add your information on small EQ to this dedicated EQ thread:
Quake Watch 2012

Closed.