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World » Magnitude 2.7 - NEW YORK

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Magnitude 2.7 - NEW YORK

2009 February 18 03:41:50 UTC

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Earthquake Details

Magnitude

2.7

Date-Time

Wednesday, February 18, 2009 at 03:41:50 UTC

Tuesday, February 17, 2009 at 10:41:50 PM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location

42.570°N, 74.103°W

Depth

9 km (5.6 miles)

Region

NEW YORK

Distances

15 km (10 miles) N (8°) from Medusa, NY

16 km (10 miles) SSW (201°) from Altamont, NY

17 km (10 miles) WSW (238°) from Voorheesville, NY

138 km (86 miles) WNW (292°) from Springfield, MA

208 km (129 miles) N (356°) from New York,
NY

Location
Uncertainty

horizontal +/- 0.2 km (0.1 miles); depth +/- 1.4 km (0.9 miles)

Parameters

NST= 12, Nph= 25, Dmin=28 km, Rmss=0.16 sec, Gp=
94°,
M-type=duration magnitude (Md), Version=1

Source

Lamont-Doherty
Cooperative Seismographic Network (LCSN)

Event
ID

ld1023339

This event has been reviewed by a seismologist.

Did
you feel it? Report shaking and damage at your location. You can
also view a map displaying accumulated data from your report and others.

Earthquake Summary

Tectonic Summary

EARTHQUAKES IN THE ADIRONDACK REGION
The Adirondack region of
northern New York State is one of the more seismically active parts of the
northeastern U.S. The three largest known earthquakes in the region caused about
$20 million of damage (in 2002 dollars) to Cornwall, Ontario, and to Massena,
New York in 1944 (magnitude 5.8), caused slight damage in a sparsely settled
part of the southern Adirondack Mountains in 1983 (magnitude 4.9), and damaged
the vicinity of Plattsburg, New York, on April 20, 2002 (magnitude 5.0).
Moderately damaging earthquakes strike somewhere in the region every few
decades, and smaller earthquakes are felt about once every three or four years.

Earthquakes in the central and eastern U.S., although less frequent than in
the western U.S., are typically felt over a much broader region. East of the
Rockies, an earthquake can be felt over an area as much as ten times larger than
a similar magnitude earthquake on the west coast. A magnitude 4.0 eastern U.S.
earthquake typically can be felt at many places as far as 100 km (60 mi) from
where it occurred, and it infrequently causes damage near its source. A
magnitude 5.5 eastern U.S. earthquake usually can be felt as far as 500 km (300
mi) from where it occurred, and sometimes causes damage as far away as 40 km (25
mi).

FAULTS
Earthquakes everywhere occur on faults within bedrock,
usually miles deep. Most of the Adirondack region's bedrock was formed as
several generations of mountains rose and were eroded down again over the last
billion or so years.

At well-studied plate boundaries like the San Andreas fault system in
California, often scientists can determine the name of the specific fault that
is responsible for an earthquake. In contrast, east of the Rocky Mountains this
is rarely the case. The Adirondack region is far from the nearest plate
boundaries, which are in the center of the Atlantic Ocean and in the Caribbean
Sea. The region is laced with known faults but numerous smaller or deeply buried
faults remain undetected. Even the known faults are poorly located at earthquake
depths. Accordingly, few Adirondack earthquakes can be linked to named faults.
It is difficult to determine if a known fault is still active and could slip and
cause an earthquake. As in most other areas east of the Rockies, the best guide
to earthquake hazards in the Adirondack region is the earthquakes themselves.

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Page Last Modified: February 18, 2009 05:42:08
UTC