AUGUST 23, 2011 AT TWO PM – THE HOUSE SHAKES
What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you are in the living room planning homeschool lessons while your teenage kids are innocently in the kitchen, dutifully cleaning up the aftermath of the ice cream sodas, when all matter of peaceful existence suddenly comes to an end.
While my son obediently loaded the the dishwasher, he shut the door….SUDDEN SHAKING OF THE HOUSE OCCURS!!!
“I didn’t do it, Mom!” my son quickly exclaims.
He quickly turns off the dishwasher and the quaking stops.
In disbelief, I suggested to the kids it was an earthquake, after hearing various items throughout the house crash.
In greater disbelief my kids exclaimed, “In Virginia???”
“Mom, it must be the pipes knocking!” my son exclaimed.
“They don’t knock that hard,” I insisted.
“But an earthquake? Really?” the kids countered.
“Yes, I’ve been through a tremor in college in San Marcos, Texas during science class. After the shaking stopped my professor said, “well, we are located on the Balcones Fault Line.”
5.8 EARTHQUAKE EPICENTER – MINERAL, VIRGINIA
The local Washington DC newsroom has announced a 5.8 magnitude earthquake originating from a little town in central Virginia.
For perspective, while we live about 30 miles southwest of DC, the town of Mineral is 67 southeast of us.
When we drive to Colonial Williamsburg and other points south, we drive through a tiny town called Goldvein, which has always caught my eye in curiousity.
Wanting to explore that geographically rich area as evidenced by the name of the town, other opportunites beckoned. 😉
With Goldvein located 56 miles from Mineral, I knew from my college geology classes there must be a reason behind the name of Mineral, and that the area between the two towns must be geologically rich.
Further research yielded that Mineral’s name for its fifteen gold mine camps, and proved the geologically rich history of central Virginia.
If only the London Company who settled in Jamestown knew…
GOLD IN VIRGINIA FIRST RECORDED BY THOMAS JEFFERSON 1782
In the town of Goldvein, is an old gold mining camp from the 1930s: Gold Mining Camp Museum at Monroe Park. (Fascinating details follow from their link.)
Although not actually a gold mine site, it interprets nineteen other gold mine camps within five miles of the park.
After a quick internet search, I learned fifteen nearby gold mining camps prompted the name of Mineral, Virginia!
Turns out, Virginia is one of the first states to produce gold in the country.
The London Company that landed in Jamestown in 1607 to find gold for the king, would be happy chagrined to learn that a four-pound rock bearing gold was discovered near the town of Falmouth, on the north side of the Rappahannock River…37 miles away from Goldvein….yet 116 miles north of Jamestown.
Although the infamous early govenor of Virginia, John Smith, explored the Chesapeake and its tributaries to seek gold while mapping the waterways, his excursion of the Rappahannock resulted in Indian conflicts instead of gold discoveries.
Reaching the fall line of the Rappahannock on August 22, 1608, (Falmouth’s location) the crew faces an Indian attack.
Afterwards, Smith takes an injured Indian aboard his ship, for treatment by their doctor.
In the following days, Smith secures peace with the local Indians, who offer him his choice of three of their women for a wife, which he declines.
1806 FIRST GOLD VEIN DISCOVERY IN SPOTSYLVANIA
In 1806, the first vein of gold discovery in Spotsylvania, near Shady Grove Church prompted Virginia’s first gold mine camp for extraction of gold.
Virginia’s General Assembly chartered the Virginia Mining Company in 1832, and operated a mine in Orange County….where Montpelier, the home of James Madison, is located.
From 1806 to 1947, more than 98,609 troy ounces of gold excavation occured in Virginia.
Where there’s gold, there could be earthquakes…since its such a geologically rich (in mining) area.
UPDATE 2:28PM – EAST COAST GEOLOGY CREATES FAR REACHING EARTHQUAKE
My daughter just asked if Colonial Williamsburg felt it and I’m sure they did.
Wall Street Journal blog announced that those at the New York Stock Exchange felt it!
And now reports are exploding from places as far north as Canada, south to Georgia and west to Ohio, that they felt the earthquake.
That’s massive!
Whereas West Coast earthquakes are felt locally, East Coast earthquakes are felt widely due to the difference in the type of crust, and that the rocks are are colder and harder.
Also, with the epicenter less than a mile below ground, the effects reach a more widespread audience.
UPDATE 2:40 PM – CELL PHONE SYSTEM OVERLOADED
WJLA news reports an overloaded cell phone system.
I believe it since I’ve not yet received standard daily communication on my phone, apart from random messages that have no connection to me.
It’s a hot mess.
WE EXPERIENCED PREVIOUS VIRGINIA EARTHQUAKE
After an internet research I discovered there had been a 3.6 earthquake in the area in July 2010 at 5am.
Wow! Who knew? We were living here at the time but must have slept through that one!
By the way, Virginia earthquake recordings date back to the 18th century!
FEBRUARY 21, 1774 -EARLIEST RECORDING VIRGINIA EARTHQUAKE BY THOMAS JEFFERSON
February 21st 1774 (estimated magnitude Mb 4.5) -The earliest documented written account of an earthquake in Virginia is found in Thomas Jefferson’s personal account book. During the afternoon of February 21, 1774 at Monticello, anearthquake “shook the houses so sensibly that every body [sic] run out of doors” (Bear andStanton, 1997). In Fredericksburg, buildings shook and glasses rattled; at Westover Plantation in Charles City County the earthquake reportedly “shook the Dwelling-House very much” and; in Richmond the earthquake was accompanied by “a loud noise like thunder” (The Virginia Gazette, 1774). Aside from causing a general panic, the 1774 earthquake reportedly resulted in serious structural damage closer to the probable epicenter. In the towns of both Petersburg and near by Blandford, houses were physically dislodged from their foundations (The Virginia Gazette, 1774). Store bells as far away as Winston-Salem, North Carolina chimed (MacCarthy, 1957; Stover and Coffman, 1993). It is estimated that people within 130,000 square kilometers of the 1774 earthquake reported feeling the event (Hopper and Bollinger, 1971) (Figure 13). Aftershocks were reported in Charlottesville on February 22 (MacCarthy, 1964) and in Williamsburg on February 23 (The Virginia Gazette, 1774). –Virginia Division of Geology and Mineral Resources
MARCH 9, 1828 – PRESIDENT JOHN QUINCY ADAMS RECORDS EARTHQUAKE
March 9th 1828 (estimated magnitude Mb 5.0) – A significant earthquake occurred on March 9th of 1828. This event was felt across a broad area of more than 500,000 square kilometers (Bollinger, 1969), startling residents from Pennsylvania to Ohio and Kentucky, and south into South Carolina (MacCarthy 1963, 1964; Figure 14). In Washington, D.C., president John Quincy Adams recorded his experience as being similar to “…the heaving of a ship at sea” (Adams, 1875 via MacCarthy, 1964). The shock was apparently also accompanied by a loud rumbling “not unlike that produced by the rapid passage of many carriages over a pavement” (The Susquehanna Democrat, 1828). Although reports of rattling dishes, windows, and doors were common within the felt area, the maximum MMI was not greater than V(MacCarthy, 1964). The epicenter is believed to have been in southwestern Virginia (MacCarthy, 1964). —Virginia Division of Geology and Mineral Resources
The above links provide documentation of later widely experienced Virginia earthquakes for the years 1833, 1852, 1853, 1875, 1897, 1899, 1918, 2003, and now, 2011.
UPDATE AUGUST 25, 2011 – AFTERSHOCK 4.5 MAGNITUDE
Last night I went to bed and as I t-r-i-e-d to fall asleep and was finally getting -d-o-z-e-y I could have sworn the house started shaking.
Oh no, here we go again! Then it stopped. I finally went to sleep, figuring it was my imagination.
This morning the Washington Post announced that we had a 4.5 aftershock last night at 1:07am!
Glad to know I’m not imagining things!
Apparently we’ve had other aftershocks too, in the 2 range, which we haven’t felt at all.
EPILOGUE – HURRICANE IDA INFLUENCE, DAMAGE IN WASHINGTON DC
Interestingly, Scientific American published an interesting argument, that the massive Hurricane Ida which smacked the East Coast days after the Virginia earthquake might have triggered more aftershocks than historically recorded.
The rate of aftershocks usually decreases with time…but instead of declining in a normal pattern, the rate of aftershocks following the 23 August 2011, earthquake near Mineral, Virginia, increased sharply as Irene passed by…seismic records from the days following the main earthquake, identifying about 700 aftershocks — about 10 times more than had been previously reported using less-sensitive detection techniques. –Scientific American
Now deemed the largest earthquake in Virginia, the earthquake begged a great header photo on my new blog site, but of what?
Thus the Washington Monument from our 2008 trip to Washington, DC from Texas.
Why? Severe damage from the earthquake necessitated closure for three years to the Washington Monument.
Meanwhile, the National Cathedral continues repairs from the earthquake (even into 2024) due to all the damage incurred from the largest earthquake in Virginia, occuring 90 miles away from the Gothic building built in 1907.
Damage included:
- broken, twisted, and collapsed pinnacles
- crumbled and fallen gargoyles and carvings
- roof damage
- cracks in some of the flying buttresses
- loosened and crumbled mortar joints
