8.0-Magnitude Earthquake off the Coast of Alaska, Tsunami Warning West Coast

[Frozenbeef]

Never felt an earthquake in my life You people are so lucky with your killer earthquakes, tornadoes, tsunamis, volcanos, hurricanes etc etc... so lame and safe here :s

[Cyberowl]

Never felt an earthquake in my life You people are so lucky with your killer earthquakes, tornadoes, tsunamis, volcanos, hurricanes etc etc... so lame and safe here :s

Some people would call English women a natural disaster. *not serious well maybe a bit*

[Sunseeker]

Terminology nag: you mean hypocenter/hypofocus. Epicenter just refers to the point on the earth's surface above where the earthquake originated.

Yes you are correct, I was racking my brain for the correct term and couldn't come up with it.

[Symphonic]

Never felt an earthquake in my life You people are so lucky with your killer earthquakes, tornadoes, tsunamis, volcanos, hurricanes etc etc... so lame and safe here :s

When I lived in Peru is when I felt my first earthquakes. It was about a 7 or 8 that struck, I was quite far away, (I'd say it felt like a 3 or 4 where I was) and everyone ran out into the street, and you could feel the street below your feet going up and down like you were seeing a wave pass by. It was the strangest feeling. It didn't help that everyone in Peru is so paranoid of earthquakes since there was a huge one in 1970 that killed tens of thousands of people. But for me, I think they feel neat, and I just wish nobody would get hurt from them.

[Biggles Worth]

I'm sorry everyone, I told my friends mom not to go swimming but she just had to jump in. Luckily she did a dive so it minimized the magnitude of the earthquake.

[Ghostpanther]

A 10.0 earthquake has never been recorded in human times. Again, not overly concerned, since such an event has the kind of rarity associated with supervolcano eruptions, which means we'd have bigger problems on our hands than buildings collapsing.
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There was one in Chile which was 9.1 I think. Even a 9.2 magnitude quake off the coast of Cal would be catastrophic. And it is certainly possible.

[Tziva]

There was one in Chile which was 9.1 I think. Even a 9.2 magnitude quake off the coast of Cal would be catastrophic. And it is certainly possible.

I don't know what the Madrid quake was in Missouri in the 1800s (I don't know if we even can know; what kind of seismic measuring equipment existed then?), but I know it was huge.

I think seismologists can generally tell what magnitude a fault has the potential to cause. Some faultlines (and sections of faultlines) simply aren't capable of resulting in enormous earthquakes.

Alaska has had historically a lot of very large earthquakes, so I don't think this one is out of sorts.

/not a seismologist