We just felt a 4.9 earthquake from Texas!

[thewayne]

A place called Toyah, directly south of Carlsbad, about the same distance south of the border as Carlsbad is north. Maybe 200 miles from us on a SE diagonal? Very brief duration, just a couple of seconds.

Now, the funny thing is we had literally just completed filling in the word Tremor in a crossword puzzle! I thought Russet was shaking the couch as a joke, but nope, it was real! I could see the TV vibrate as it doesn't have a very good stand. The dogs didn't react, they're lying on the couch next to where we were sitting. Nothing fell and we didn't hear any breakage.

Keep in mind that we're literally on top of a mountain at 8,800'! (2,682 meters) There's lots of fracking on the eastern half of the state, also in that part of Texas, part of the Permian Basin which is a major oil production area.

Comments

[starwatcher]

I felt it too, vibrating my couch, but it didn't visibly affect the rest of the furniture.

The strange thing is differing reports of length. Saturday's news said Roswell felt it for almost 4 minutes. You felt it for "a couple of seconds." Mine lasted between 30 to 45 seconds. I didn't time it, but I took time to recognize I was feeling something strange, then analyze what might be the cause, then finally realize, "Wow! It's an earthquake!"

Now I'm puzzling over the different times. Maybe traveling through different rock strata enhanced or damped the waves over distance. Not important, but intriguing.

[thewayne]

Interesting.  Us living on top of a bedrock mountain, I could see that having a dampening effect.  You're closer, and there's lots of drilling not terribly far from you.  Possibly some sort of echo chamber effect?  Dunno.