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Virginia Earthquake Measured at Penn State Dubois

Posted by Kristine A. on 08/23 at 04:18 PM

Here’s an image and description of the earthquake measurement in Dubois, thanks to Richard Brazier, Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Penn State Dubois, and Charles Ammon, Professor of Geosciences at Penn State University Park.

Virginia Magnitude 5.9 Earthquake, Origin time 17:51:03 UTC, August 23, 2011
Ground motion recorded on seismic station at Penn State, DuBois Campus

BHZ = vertical ground motion
BHN = ground motion N-S direction
BHE = ground motion E-W direction

Note that seismogram starts at 17:50, about 1 minute before the earthquake.

You can clearly see three types of wave the first or primary wave at about 55 seconds the secondary S arrival at 100 second and finally the surface waves which is the wave you all felt around 140 seconds. It’s a fairly large event but the reason you all felt it so far away is that it is very shallow around 1km depth.