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Quake shakes part of region
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An earthquake with a 5.2 magnitude on the Richter scale shook parts of southeast Wisconsin early Friday morning despite it being centered in West Salem, Ill., 323 miles from Madison.
The tremors could be felt from Kansas to Michigan to Georgia at 4:36 a.m.
No major damage or injuries were reported, but it was the largest quake to come out of the faults in southern Illinois since November 1968, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
“Earthquakes in this area are infrequent but not unexpected,” said Harley Benz, scientist-in-charge at the USGS National Earthquake Information Center.
While there were many reports of people feeling the tremors, many more didn’t even feel it.
“Anybody that was woken up by this earthquake probably felt a very strong, sharp jolt, and it probably didn’t last very long, no more than a few seconds,” Benz said.
University of Wisconsin sophomore Matt Krco was trying to sleep on his couch when the tremors started.
“All of a sudden, the whole couch started vibrating, so I sat up and the whole house and the walls started shaking,” Krco said. “Then everything in the kitchen, the pots and the pans started shaking.”
UW geology professor Robert Dott can recall a few earthquakes in Madison during his 40-year tenure.
“Some of the stronger quakes from down there can be felt as far up as this,” Dott said. “There’s a complicated set of faults in southern Illinois, Kentucky and Missouri, and it’s along that complex fault system that these earthquakes happen.”
Not only was this earthquake weaker than many of those along the San Andreas Fault in California and Nevada, it also traveled farther, as far as 500 miles, according to UW seismology professor Cliff Thurber.
“The basic situation is that the eastern U.S. is kind of old, solid, cold and inactive,” Thurber said. “So seismic waves travel greater distances here than if that same earthquake were in California.”
Aftershocks were felt throughout Friday morning, the strongest having a magnitude of 4.6 on the Richter scale. It was recorded by the USGS at 10:15 a.m. Friday.
USGS officials are worried that Friday’s earthquake could be the start of several more severe earthquakes located in the nearby New Madrid seismic zone.
There is a potential risk for serious earthquakes like those felt in the area during the winter of 1811-12. The series of three earthquakes was felt over an area of 1 million square miles, causing an unknown amount of damage and resulting in aftershocks for years afterward.
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