Earth tremor felt across England (4.7 magnitude quake)

[Wednesdays]

Source: BBC

People from across large parts of England have reported an earth tremor.

The BBC has received calls from people in Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Leicestershire, Manchester, Berkshire and the West Midlands about a "quake".

The tremor could be felt in central Birmingham at about 0100 GMT but it is unclear if it has caused any damage.

The US Geographical Survey's website reported a quake of the magnitude of 4.7 and said the epicentre was 30 miles (50km) south of Kingston-upon-Hull.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/7266136.stm

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Friends all over England on another message board reported how freaked they were when they felt this!

[supernova]

1. No wonder. Middle of the night

It would make me anxious too.

[Haole Girl]

2. Odd

Never remember hearing about an earthquake in the U.K. Interesting.

[Mr Creosote]

3. Well I suppose it depends

what counts as an earthquake. This is my second one in 7 years - I think we very very seldom get one big enough to cause structural damage.

[Wednesdays]

5. It's already listed in Wikipedia

True that quakes strong enough to cause injuries are very rare, but they do occur:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_earthquakes_in_the_United_Kingdom

[NashVegas]

6. All Those Centuries-Old Buildings

Would be in trouble if a really, really big one hit.

[harmonicon]

4. it was actually pretty cool

I felt it in a big way here in West Yorkshire. At first I thought it must be something else, because I didn't know England had earthquakes, but I recognized the feeling from having lived in California. This seemed a lot more severe than any I felt when I did live in California ('02 - '06), but at least in my immediate vicinity nothing seems to have been damaged.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

7. The British Geological Survey said it believed the quake was of the magnitude of 5.1

The house shook for about five seconds, it was freaky but strangely exhilarating to be rattled by such earthy forces at 1.00 in the morning.

[and-justice-for-all]

8. Well, we do live on an active planet...

The continents are always in motion, such things should be expected and there is nothing that can be done about them.

[Bobbieo]

9. We've had about ten 4.5 plus earthquakes this month in the

Baja Cal border area. I suppose the one in England is a rare occurence, though. The earth is undergoing many changes!!!!

[and-justice-for-all]

12. It is always changing...

As with Evolution, it is a slow process and take thousands or millions of years.

In about 2.5 to 5 million years (If the Sun does not swell into a red giant and swollow all the inner planets first) all the Continents will, has they have twice in the Earths history, will again become a massive super continent.

[harmonicon]

16. do you mean billions?

Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought continental drift on that scale took far longer than even tens of millions of years.

[RaleighNCDUer]

17. I think you missed a decimal place or two.

The last supercontinent was @200 million years ago. And I don't think we're due to go red giant for another 3-5 billion years.

[and-justice-for-all]

18. Yeah, I think I did...

I did'nt google it to get the exact time frame.

We will not be here to see any of it anyway.

[RaleighNCDUer]

19. Well, you may not be -

I might have different plans...

:hi:

[brooklynite]

10. Clearly God's wraths for.....something

Is Pat Robertson available?

[bigworld]

11. tectonic plates

That's odd -- there aren't any tectonic plate borders anywhere near England. are there?

[and-justice-for-all]

13. England is on the Eurasian Plate

<a href="http://www.britannica.com/eb/art-69411"> lithosphere: plates with hot spots</a>

I would have posted the map, but I can not figure out how to do so.

[muriel_volestrangler]

14. You can have big quakes inside a plate as well

eg the New Madrid earthquake of 1812: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Madrid_Fault_Zone

[Mr Creosote]

21. Indeed, for example, and putting English earthquakes in context,

Wikipedia also reports:

"On August 8th, 1992, during the song "One Step Beyond" a ground tremor of over 4.5 on the Richter Scale was measured as the fans danced, the number of fans was 36,007. Several reports noted that the song which followed this, "The Prince", contains the highly appropriate line "an earthquake is erupting"."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madstock!

How nutty is that?

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

15. This is true.

However, the British Isles are undergoing isostatic rebound and significant changes to the sediment load near certain parts of the coast (deposition or removal of large amounts of sediment) that can be enough to trigger quakes of this magnitude in areas where there are already pre-existing (though not plate-boundary) faults.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-glacial_rebound#State_of_Stress_and_Intraplate_Earthquakes

[daleo]

20. I hope some people were "lying back and thinking of England"

At the time of the earthquake.