# Three earthquakes in one day? Seriously?!
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/three-earthquakes-in-one-day-seriously/709183
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [January 7, 2015, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/three-earthquakes-in-one-day-seriously/709183 "2015-01-07T02:40:26Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@phouka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phouka)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2015, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/three-earthquakes-in-one-day-seriously/709183/1 "2015-01-07T02:40:26Z")
I don’t know who we pissed off here in Texas, but this is getting weird, y’all.
[First one](http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/usc000tc7z#summary) hit just after three p.m. and felt like it lasted about five seconds long. Just enough for everyone to stop what they were doing, say “hey, is that an e-holy crap, it’s an earthquake!”, and then a second or two longer so I could think “you are going to stop, _right_?” For a bit afterwards, I felt dizzy and nauseous, almost certainly because we were up on the fourth floor and got to move quite a bit more than the people on the first. Turned out my office is within five miles of almost all of the quakes.
[The second one](http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/usc000tca7#summary) hit while I was eating dinner at a local restaurant. It felt much less severe but turned out to be stronger by .1 on the Richter scale.
The third one isn’t online yet, but I could feel it for much longer - probably because I’m five more miles further north - nearly twenty seconds of “hey, is that a . . . I’m sure I heard a . . . Yep! that’s a - and there go the cats!”
A lot of people are blaming fracking. It’s certainly been used a lot around here, but my understanding is that most fracking drills to 1-2 miles, while the epicenters of these earthquakes have been around 3 miles down. Doesn’t seem likely.
I heard someone suggest that the implosion of Texas Stadium back in 2010 might have set them off. I managed not to laugh.
There’s also the [the Balcones Fault](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balcones_Fault), which was responsible for my very first earthquake - a 2.1 in San Antonio more than 20 years ago. I didn’t feel a thing, but the community college I was taking a summer class at evacuated just the same.
So far, people are treating it like a change in the weather - an interesting topic of conversation, but not reason enough to check your emergency supplies. Geologists from SMU placed new seismometers near where the old stadium stood only yesterday. I get the feeling they’re going to be pulling some late hours.
I wonder what’s next.
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### Author:  [@phouka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phouka)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2015, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/three-earthquakes-in-one-day-seriously/709183/2 "2015-01-07T02:42:18Z")
[Here’s the third.](http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/usc000tcag#summary) A solid 2.9.
The USGS is getting these up faster with each one. 😃
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### Author:  [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2015, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/three-earthquakes-in-one-day-seriously/709183/3 "2015-01-07T02:52:34Z")
> [@phouka](#):
>
> A solid 2.9.
Oh, you non-Californians. Under a 4.0 doesn’t even wake me. A 2.9 is indistinguishable from a fat guy walking past my cube. There were 21 earthquakes \>3.0 mag within 100 km of my place in the past year…
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### Author:  [@notfrommensa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notfrommensa)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2015, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/three-earthquakes-in-one-day-seriously/709183/4 "2015-01-07T02:53:33Z")
My sister is probably freaking out. She just moved to the Dallas area and she has lived in Florida for the last 35 years where they don’t have many (any?) quakes.
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### Author:  [@phouka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phouka)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2015, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/three-earthquakes-in-one-day-seriously/709183/5 "2015-01-07T03:02:23Z")
Hey, I lived in California for over eight years. I’ve been through a couple of 5+ earthquakes.
They just didn’t happen all on the same day!
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### Author:  [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2015, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/three-earthquakes-in-one-day-seriously/709183/6 "2015-01-07T03:11:29Z")
> [@phouka](#):
>
> They just didn’t happen all on the same day!
[Yes they do](http://www.conservation.ca.gov/cgs/News/Pages/loma_prieta.aspx).
> [@my link](#):
>
> In the week following Loma Prieta, 20 aftershocks magnitude 4.0 or greater and more than 300 of magnitude 2.5 or greater were recorded.
…or an average of 42 aftershock quakes a day. I was there: trust me, I felt dozens of them.
Three is nothing.
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### Author:  [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2015, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/three-earthquakes-in-one-day-seriously/709183/7 "2015-01-07T03:33:38Z")
> [@phouka](#):
>
> I don’t know who we pissed off here in Texas, but this is getting weird, y’all.
I take it you didn’t watch the Dallas/Detroit game on Sunday?
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### Author:  [@Boogly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boogly)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2015, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/three-earthquakes-in-one-day-seriously/709183/8 "2015-01-07T05:50:34Z")
> [@Duckster](#):
>
> I take it you didn’t watch the Dallas/Detroit game on Sunday?
LMAO!!
Don’t move to the Pacific Rim if 3.6 quakes with aftershocks stress you because we might be in the incipient stages of the apocalypse out here.
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### Author:  [@Boogly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boogly)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2015, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/three-earthquakes-in-one-day-seriously/709183/9 "2015-01-07T06:59:26Z")
To be fair some report that there were actually 8 earthquakes.
[http://www.dallasnews.com/news/community-news/northwest-dallas-county/headlines/20150107-biggest-quakes-yet-hit-irving-and-shake-up-cities-around-north-texas.ece](http://www.dallasnews.com/news/community-news/northwest-dallas-county/headlines/20150107-biggest-quakes-yet-hit-irving-and-shake-up-cities-around-north-texas.ece)
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### Author:  [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2015, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/three-earthquakes-in-one-day-seriously/709183/10 "2015-01-07T15:51:20Z")
> [@Boogly](#):
>
> To be fair some report that there were actually 8 earthquakes.
>
> [http://www.dallasnews.com/news/community-news/northwest-dallas-county/headlines/20150107-biggest-quakes-yet-hit-irving-and-shake-up-cities-around-north-texas.ece](http://www.dallasnews.com/news/community-news/northwest-dallas-county/headlines/20150107-biggest-quakes-yet-hit-irving-and-shake-up-cities-around-north-texas.ece)
And now? [Its Nine…](http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/Earthquake-Felt-in-Fort-Worth-Dallas-Irving-287697091.html)
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### Author:  [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2015, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/three-earthquakes-in-one-day-seriously/709183/11 "2015-01-07T16:11:57Z")
> [@phouka](#):
>
> “hey, is that a . . . I’m sure I heard a . . . Yep! that’s a - and there go the cats!”
>
> …
>
> I wonder what’s next.
Well, it looks like the cats and dogs aren’t living together any more, so that’s one down.
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### Author:  [@Charlie\_Wayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Wayne)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2015, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/three-earthquakes-in-one-day-seriously/709183/12 "2015-01-07T17:05:35Z")
The End is Near! The End is Near! The End is Near!
The End is Near! The End is Near! The End is Near!
The End is Near! The End is Near! The End is Near!
Or … maybe not.
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### Author:  [@Charlie\_Wayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Wayne)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2015, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/three-earthquakes-in-one-day-seriously/709183/13 "2015-01-07T17:08:44Z")
> [@phouka](#):
>
> I don’t know who we pissed off here in Texas, but this is getting weird, y’all.
If you believe in The Bible and the retribution of the laws of Karma, maybe this has something to do with the fact that Texas executes more people than any other state.
I’m not really sure. I’m just saying, y’all.
Either way, I wouldn’t want to live in Texas and I doubt they’d want to have me anyway.
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### Author:  [@Hopeful\_Crow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hopeful_Crow)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2015, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/three-earthquakes-in-one-day-seriously/709183/14 "2015-01-07T21:55:23Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#):
>
> Oh, you non-Californians. Under a 4.0 doesn’t even wake me…
Ditto from someone who has lived nearly all her life in the Puget Sound region. The last good shaker we had was in 2001 and was a magnitude of 6.1. Though we’ve had a bunch in the magnitude 4 area since then and many, many more smaller ones, I haven’t felt them.
I live on an upper floor of a newer building now, which sways in a good wind storm. Next quake should be quite interesting.
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### Author:  [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2015, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/three-earthquakes-in-one-day-seriously/709183/15 "2015-01-07T22:57:32Z")
Apparently Texas earthquakes go to eleven. In quantity, anyway- none was larger than 3.6 or so. Freaky.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2015, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/three-earthquakes-in-one-day-seriously/709183/16 "2015-01-07T23:01:15Z")
Heck, I’m a midwesterner, and I still only barely notice anything under 4. I probably get more shaking from the freight trains that go by three times a day.
And what’s weird about multiple quakes in one day? Isn’t that how they almost always go?
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### Author:  [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2015, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/three-earthquakes-in-one-day-seriously/709183/17 "2015-01-07T23:26:36Z")
So, they must be fracking in Texas.
There have been a few places that have outlawed it, because the earthquakes were scaring the peoples.
Here, in the PNW, we don’t need to dig holes to make the earth dance, she does the lambada all on her own.
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### Author:  [@Calatin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Calatin)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2015, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/three-earthquakes-in-one-day-seriously/709183/18 "2015-01-07T23:28:35Z")
I only felt the third one, around 7 pm or so. I was sitting on the couch and felt a gentle sway and noticed my lamp slightly moving.
It was the first earthquake I’d felt (I didn’t notice the other two during the work-day), and I sent a message to my friend in L.A. He then proceeded to rib me about being excited about something that is so commonplace for them. When I reminded him about the reaction to the tornado in Los Angeles, he shut up fairly quickly.
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### Author:  [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2015, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/three-earthquakes-in-one-day-seriously/709183/19 "2015-01-07T23:30:59Z")
> [@Lightnin](#):
>
> Apparently Texas earthquakes go to eleven. In quantity, anyway- none was larger than 3.6 or so. Freaky.
Blatantly stolen from Reddit:
11 earthquakes a-shaking
10 people a-griping
9 News Stories milking
8 death rowers baking
7 Oil Rigs not pumping
6 Parlors a-laying
5 Super…Bowl…Rings!!!
4 Scorpions on your wall
3 cheese pizza
2 felons want your vote
…AND a Bike in the Basement of the Alamo!!!
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### Author:  [@usedtobe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usedtobe)
#### Post date: [January 8, 2015, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/three-earthquakes-in-one-day-seriously/709183/20 "2015-01-08T06:46:47Z")
I was removing 5 layers of wallpaper in a closet when the Loma Prieta hit.
The closet was in San Francisco.
I grabbed the cat and headed for the door, but finally stopped.
My only thought was “somebody’s going to die in this one”.
It was not the first for me - that was circa 1980.
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