Oklahoma Quake Swarm Thread

Fracking may not be the (only) culprit.
www.cleveland.com...

Saturday December 7 2013, 18:10:24 UTC 55 minutes ago Oklahoma 4.5 9.0 CSEM-EMSC Feed

quakes.globalincidentmap.com...#

Just had another pretty large one out here in OK. My sister lives in Edmond and said it sounded like a big bang and pictures were rattling and in disarray on the walls after it was over.

I went to the "felt it" map to see what others in the area were reporting i.e. any damage ect. and saw a quite interesting comment left on that site.....

•Edmond - These are happening all the time over the last couple months..just 7 To 12 miles east of me, this was the strongest so far....i have also noticed strange objects In the sky over the area at the same time as the quakes..they move like a really close asteroid of somesorts..at a really fast speed...jus sayin so. .ceiling fans Almost shook off the mount..no damage

Earthquake Report

Just thought that was a bit unusual. If that person isn't a member here, they should be

~OkieDokie

Crazy, yes things are definitely shaking there today, hope it settles.

My son-in-law felt the Edmond quake all the way in Norman.
I'm over a half a century old and I don't recall ever having
quakes here and my grandmother used to quip that yes we
have tornados but at least we don't have earthquakes. Not
sure what is happening in our state these days. Darned peculiar, though.

These quakes seem to be felt by many despite their small to medium magnitudes. The geology of that area must be knit quite tightly for these 4m shakers to effect such a large area.

reply to post by canucks555


Nothing but hard-packed red clay covered by a dense layer of various weeds.

Looked like you guys got a strong one :

earthquake.usgs.gov...

4.1 and five klicks down, that's not "weak" in that geological region.

shakiest place on the planet today. stay safe you folks down there.

earthquake.usgs.gov...

*removed*

LANGSTON, Okla. (AP) -- The U.S. Geological Survey has recorded nine earthquakes in Oklahoma since about 9:30 p.m. Friday, the largest being a magnitude 4.0. The U.S.G.S. says the 4.0 magnitude quake was recorded at 10:05 p.m. Friday about seven miles south of Langston. The other quakes ranged from magnitude 2.4 to 2.9 and all but four were near Langston. The others were near Stillwater, Choctaw, Cherokee and Crescent. No injuries or damage are reported. Geologists say earthquakes of magnitude 2.5 to 3.0 are generally the smallest felt by humans. Scientists are studying why earthquake activity has increased in Oklahoma and whether it is connected to wastewater disposal related to oil and gas production -- but have found no answers. The energy industry denies that the method is to blame for the increase.

www.okcfox.com...

I think it's getting worse..

reply to post by canucks555


My sis lives in Tulsa and her house happens to be on top of where the old Tulsa mines are over by the fairgrounds...she is feeling every one of these quakes something like 16 yesterday. She thinks because of the tunnels underneath her house this area of the city are feeling them even though other places might not be. I'm a little concerned some of those old mine shafts might collapse and take a few houses with them.

Well, we've had a bunch of earthquakes again. Between when I first posted about these, I've made an app on the Android to get some decent tracking for it. For reference, the magnitudes are roughly divided kinda like USGS's - black is 0.0-0.9, dark grey is 1.0-1.9, bluish grey is 2.0-2.9, teal is 3.0-3.9, and green is 4.0-4.9. Here are the ones in the last week:

Here are the ones in the last day:

Bigger ones, too - 3 4.0+ quakes in the last day. One is right now rated at 4.5, but these might go down. These bigger ones are between Enid and Guthrie, well North of Oklahoma City. Glad they're not closer to me! We certainly noticed the house shake a bit from that 4.5, it lasted a good twenty seconds:

There have also been numerous quakes closer to Oklahoma City, in the suburb of Choctaw - literally within city limits:

I'd been hoping it had quieted down somewhat, but I think I was mistaken.

Two Oklahoma earthquakes in a DAY put state on track for biggest year of seismic activity EVER

Last year's number of 'felt' earthquakes - those strong enough to rattle items on a shelf - hit a record 222 in the state. This year, less than four months into the year, the state has recorded 253 such tremors, according to state seismic data

www.dailymail.co.uk...

Not exactly the kind of record you hope to break.

Plotting the last month of eqs it appears that the centre of all this last months activity is around 35.9N,97.2W which places it on Google Maps just outside Coyle, OK. Depths are near to the surface with max of 9.4Km. I think I have this right but it is just an experimental graph.

Google Maps 35.9N,97.2W

Latitude and depth
Longitude and depth

Another big one... we may have felt it, but I can't say for sure. I'm definitely within the radius, but I was dozing since it's a cool (so heater is on!) and dark (many clouds...) morning. I tried to estimate the radius of how it's felt based on an old paper, but I'm not sure it's accurate since USGS shows a much larger 'felt' radius:

I added a counter recently to the app. Until that 4.0+ hit, it'd been a quiet day! Including that and the two fore/aftershocks, there were only 6 earthquakes in the last 24 hours. Compared to the rest of the week... yeah, the earth has been busy:

Well, just felt a big one about 25minutes ago. It just came up as a 4.4ML on the source I'm using for my app:

People said they felt it in Tulsa, so I reckon that paper I was using isn't accurate for Oklahoma's geology.

We've had a few more since yesterday, aftershocks of that past one or foreshocks of THIS one I don't know:

Still shaky here in north-central Oklahoma!

reply to post by Greven


it was felt pretty far away too...

check out the responses on the "Did You feel It" at USGS...earthquake.usgs.gov...

Odd if it is really a 4.0.... 4.4 seems more realistic!

Another day, another large-for-Oklahoma earthquake. These are back to being closer to my house... within a few miles, way closer than the previous one. The bigger one woke me up from sleep - and I've slept through tornadoes and worse!

This is the big one this morning. 4.1, and both shallow and close to me. Ugh. Not fun.


Nor were the aftershocks - only one of the 10 quakes listed is elsewhere in the state. The teal markers are 3-3.9; one was a 3.8:


Also, I recorded on paper 6 different sharp booms followed by jolts prior to this big one (plus 3 more my family felt while I slept) - they started later in the evening of 4/8, followed by several in the early morning and late morning to afternoon of 4/9. These do not appear on the OGS list, although I think they have to manually add smaller earthquakes. Still, they're kind of delayed in doing so! Maybe they weren't in the office yesterday...

It's been quieter today in terms of size... we've had a few aftershocks since I posted yesterday, but mostly it's been active elsewhere in the state. I count 27 new earthquakes since I last posted, and some of them have been in the 3+ range. Fortunately, no 4+ like yesterday.

But this brings me to a concern - according to one of our Tulsa, OK TV meteorologists (I'm guessing he got this from a geologist somewhere), 4.0+ magnitude earthquakes are not supposed to be common in Oklahoma - to the tune of this figure:

1. 1882-2009 13 4.0+ quakes.
   
2. 2010-NOW 20 4.0+ quakes.

Worse... recall my posts previous in this thread...

1. 3/30 - 4.1M
   
2. 3/30 - 4.3M
   
3. 3/30 - 4.3M
   
4. 4/6 - 4.2M
   
5. 4/7 - 4.4M (rev. 4.2M)
   
6. 4/10 - 4.1M

So yeah, in the last two weeks, we've had half as many 4.0+ magnitude earthquakes as there were in 110 years.
Also, we apparently had a 4.0M on 3/21 which I don't think I posted about in this thread.

We had a pretty big earthquake just a bit ago. It isn't listed on the source my app uses nor on USGS yet.

Definitely at least a 3, and I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't a 4 - it shook this big mirror in my hallway and I've never seen that happen in these earthquakes. Pictures on walls are all askew too, and the plates in the kitchen rattled good.

Here's a seismograph reading of it Liberty Lake, OK Station OK029. There were some small foreshocks we felt only moments before it, and some aftershocks immediately following and a few minutes after.

edit: Showing up as a 3.5M on the automatic update for Leonard Geosurvey. Here's the location plotted to map on my app - Liberty Lake, where that station is, is just northeast of the epicenter.


USGS now has it up - as a 4.0. These are both computer calculated, so the sizes may be revised. This rarely happens at Leonard during the weekend, I'd be seriously surprised if they did it during Easter weekend anywhere.