Small quake

We had a small earthquake here in the Bay Area this evening. On the Peninsula, where the Institute is located, it probably lasted about 30 seconds or so, and buildings shook a little; but nothing fell over.

Seconds after it was over, I started getting IMs from colleagues, asking if I'd felt the quake too, and how long it had lasted. It was my kids' first earthquake, and so naturally I wanted to explain what an earthquake is (though without the part about the near inevitability of the Bay Area eventually being hit hard by a Hayward Fault quake); so naturally, I fired up Google Earth, found the USGS report (5.6, not so small), and showed them where the epicenter was:

The red star is the epicenter, and the yellow pin is where we live.

A little later, I was curious to see what fault it was on, so I went back online, grabbed a KMZ file from the USGS showing the locations of Bay Area fault lines, and added it into the mix:

Now I could see it was on the Calaveras Fault, not the Hayward, as I'd assumed.

We at IFTF write a lot about how visualization tools create new interpretive possibilities, and how the existence of substantial, free data sets creates new opportunities for amateur science. Turns out we're right.

Technorati Tags: earthquake, Google Earth, menlo park, visualization