Earthquake near me (far north coast of California)

[PufPuf23]

About 45 minutes ago there was a 5.5 mag earth quake 12-13 miles wsw of my house.

I thought the large live oak had leaned over and hit the back of my house at first.

Edit: upgraded to 5.6 mag

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqscanv/FaultMaps/124-41.html

[Tikki]

1. That's a somewhat isolated area, still hope all are alright.

No fears of a tsunami, correct?

Stay safe....



Tikki

[PufPuf23]

2. I am surprised that trees did not take down powerlines

especially as the soil is saturated from several days of rain.

The terrain is steep mountains bisected by rivers and heavily forested.

Landslides, some quite large, are a regular event each winter.

The epicenter was in an unusual place / depth and inland.

[classof56]

3. Oh, gulp! Been in enough earthquakes of that mag and much higher to know it's scary!

Glad your oak tree stayed put. Be safe!

[mike_c]

4. I felt it too!

In Arcata. I was in the cafeteria at HSU when everything jiggled. No shock wave to speak of, just wiggling. It got quiet for a moment, then everyone started looking at everyone else to see if anyone else felt it, LOL.

[PufPuf23]

5. I thought there was another small earth quake of smaller magnitude this AM

but the USGS did not note a quake nearby.

Most of the major Humbolt county earthquakes are offshore Petrolia so this one by Weitchipec was unusual.

The 5+ quake was at the boundary of the Galice and Franciscan formation and unusual.

Usually when there big quakes on the coast or offshore they are dampened where I live because of the many faults in the ancient rock.

One can see the faults inlands in the strikes of serpentine soils; often parts of the nearly linear faults are so old they have been covered by medi-sediments from the Galice formation so skip across the landscape because of landslides.