Rare Delaware Earthquake: 'It's A Pretty Decent Sized Quake'
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- On Thursday, A 4.1 magnitude earthquake hit near Dover, Delaware rattling up surrounding areas from Baltimore to Long Island.
Experts say, the earthquake was triggered in the earth's basement at 4:47 p.m., in bedrock five miles below the surface. Maryland's geological survey has a seismograph buried at Soldiers Delight. It picked up the quake, but the closest readings came from Delaware.
RELATED: 4.1 Earthquake Shakes Delaware, Also Felt In Maryland
Richard Ortt, Director or Maryland Geological Survey, spoke with WJZ's Alex Demitrick to explain the pressure waves shown from the quake.
"Which is the rock underneath all the sand on the Eastern Shore, and those fissures occasionally release some energy, and that's what this was," Ortt said.
Some who felt the shake from a store.
"We thought someone like dropped something in the store," one man said.
Others unsure of the shock said they thought it may have been a passing train.
"I don't know, it just felt like a train going by, but I know there aren't any trains around here," said Gustavo Vila of Anne Arudel County.
Earthquakes are measured on a logarithmic scale, the 2011 quake that shook the Mid-Atlantic, was a 5.8 quake that caused damage in Virginia, D.C. and Baltimore.
The bigger the number the greater the energy released.
"So a 2 is 10 times more than a 1. A 3 is one hundred times than a 1. And a 4 is 1,000 times more than a 1," Ortt said.
That means the 5.8 in 2011 was 25 times more powerful than Thursday's 4.1, releasing 126 times more energy, which doesn't mean a 4.1 is considered a little earthquake, at least not on the East Coast.
"It's a pretty decent sized quake," Ortt said.
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