5.5 Colorado Earthquake

ratonrange.com...

In the Earthquake's 2011 thread, someone has a link to Earthquake swarms in the same area back in 2001 potentially from the Raton Basin coal bed natural gas drilling. The area is also a large dormant volcanic area. A few miles to the southeast is the semi famous Capulin Volcano National Monument. There are basalt/magma flows all over the area.

www.stpns.net...

"In order to harvest the natural gas from the coal, the coal's pressure levels must be reduced. The levels are reduced by removing water from the coalbed.

The water taken from the coalbed is often injected back into the ground at a deep level, but can also be dissolved in evaporation pits."

I felt it in Pueblo, about 70 miles north of the epicenter. It seemed really short, just made my lighter and stuff move a bit on my computer desk.

Please no super volcano, please no super volcano, please no super volcano.......... I hope this isnt an early sign of what to come ...........Ahhhhh Ive had a good run, oh well......

I certainly hope no plumes show up on radar.......

I'm in southern Colorado and I definitely felt it. My house creaked like a strong wind had hit but it was calm. I had no idea what it was until my hubby starting hearing about it in town. At first I thought it was a low jet/helicopter over my house.

The area around Trinidad routinely experiences small quakes but this one was bigger. There's a fairly large reservoir in Trinidad. I believe they monitor the region because the weight of the water can cause seismic activity. Most of the quakes are usually only 2's or 3's.

There's always been mining down here but fracking is causing a lot of problems for locals. Not far from Trinidad, around Weston, there's a large methane/natural gas drilling operation and I believe they're fracking.

I've got the Spanish Peaks nearby, a pair of volcanic mountains, then there's the Bandito cone, Goemers butte and the Huerfano butte all remnants of volcanic plugs. Colorado has been asleep for a long time maybe it's best to leave it the hell alone.

Okay, so now this REALLY has my interest. Something is going on. It most likely isn't drilling (would have been constant, and we are seeing a much different pattern than what was happening in Arkansas), no known active faults or volcanos....so what the HECK is causing so MANY substantial quakes at a shallow depth?

SOMETHING is there....it just hasn't been discovered yet. Here is the list for today: (OH, and BTW TA, those quakes we saw last night WERE in the 3-4 mag range!!)

MAP 3.9 2011/08/23 14:11:13 37.032 -104.690 5.0 14 km ( 9 mi) SSW of Cokedale, CO
MAP 2.6 2011/08/23 12:03:56 37.055 -104.761 5.0 16 km ( 10 mi) SW of Cokedale, CO
MAP 2.1 2011/08/23 10:40:09 37.556 -105.031 5.0 6 km ( 4 mi) NNW of La Veta, CO
MAP 2.3 2011/08/23 10:29:32 37.149 -104.608 4.7 1 km ( 1 mi) ENE of Cokedale, CO
MAP 3.2 2011/08/23 09:37:57 37.099 -104.711 5.0 9 km ( 6 mi) WSW of Cokedale, CO
MAP 2.5 2011/08/23 09:32:22 37.248 -104.705 5.0 14 km ( 9 mi) NNW of Cokedale, CO
MAP 3.8 2011/08/23 07:17:58 37.099 -104.610 4.8 5 km ( 3 mi) S of Cokedale, CO
MAP 3.2 2011/08/23 07:01:35 37.109 -104.550 5.0 2 km ( 2 mi) WSW of Starkville, CO
MAP 3.5 2011/08/23 06:56:59 37.110 -104.722 5.0 10 km ( 6 mi) WSW of Cokedale, CO
MAP 5.3 2011/08/23 05:46:19 37.070 -104.700 4.0 11 km ( 7 mi) SW of Cokedale, CO
MAP 3.0 2011/08/23 02:48:52 37.056 -104.726 5.0 13 km ( 8 mi) SW of Cokedale, CO
MAP 4.6 2011/08/22 23:30:20 37.050 -104.774 5.0 17 km ( 11 mi) SW of Cokedale, CO
MAP 2.9 2011/08/22 13:52:34 37.094 -104.709 5.0 10 km ( 6 mi) SW of Cokedale, CO

SOURCE

Take a look at the MAP

There is now an article floating around from the Associated Press quoting TWO different USGS Geologists that are both saying these are unusuall and they don't know what's causing it. Hmmmm.....hard to get them to admit that normally:

DENVER — The strongest earthquake to strike Colorado in more than 40 years shook awake hundreds of people, toppled groceries off shelves and caused minor damage to homes in the southern part of the state and in northern New Mexico. No injuries were reported as aftershocks continued Tuesday.

Minor aftershocks continued Tuesday in the relatively sparsely populated area that the USGS says is not known for major quakes or active faults.

ETA: I just have to say, that since they admit they DON'T know what's causing it, and looking at the pattern of quakes prior to the 5.3...how can they say with any confidence that these are now after-shocks???

Sigala said the area occasionally has swarms of earthquakes, some lasting days or weeks, but Monday's temblor was unusual.

"A 5.3 is big for Colorado," she said.

About a dozen smaller temblors were recorded in the area in August and September 2001, Sigala said.

She said some people blamed that swarm on oil drilling in the area but that later studies proved those fears unfounded.

Colorado is no stranger to earthquakes, but most are small and go unnoticed.

According to the USGS, an earthquake in 1882 was the first to cause damage in Denver and is believed to be the largest recorded in the state

AP article


So now what??? Anyone able to pull up a list with micro quakes on it? Because I am not finding any. That would be very odd....from what I was seeing on GEE last night, there were tons of them...I would think they would be listing them by now. I'm looking at the USGS US map for 1+ mag quakes and the smallest one listed for CO is a 2.1 yesterday. ????? What in the world is going to caus a swarm of 2.0+ mag quakes at 5.0 KM depth all clustered together on no known fault or volcano? Something is off here.....

here, similar EQ swarm happened exactly 10 yrs ago (Aug - Oct 2001) in Trinidad, CO area:

pubs.usgs.gov...

reply to post by ignant


Excellent find!!!!!

From the above linked article:

A swarm of 12 widely felt earthquakes occurred between August 28 and September 21, 2001, in the area west of the town of Trinidad, Colorado. The earthquakes ranged in magnitude between 2.8 and 4.6, and the largest event occurred on September 5, eight days after the initial M 3.4 event. The nearest permanent seismograph station to the swarm is about 290 km away, resulting in large uncertainties in the location and depth of these events. To better locate and characterize the earthquakes in this swarm, we deployed a total of 12 portable seismographs in the area of the swarm starting on September 6. Here we report on data from this portable network that was recorded between September 7 and October 15. During this time period, we have high-quality data from 39 earthquakes. The hypocenters of these earthquakes cluster to define a 6 km long northeast-trending fault plane that dips steeply (70-80°) to the southeast. The upper bound of well-constrained hypocenters is near 3 km depth and lower bound is near 6 km depth. Preliminary fault mechanisms suggest normal faulting with movement down to the southeast.

Significant historical earthquakes have occurred in the Trinidad region in 1966 and 1973. Reexamination of felt reports from these earthquakes suggest that the 1973 events may have occurred in the same area, and possibly on the same fault, as the 2001 swarm.

In recent years, a large volume of excess water that is produced in conjunction with coal-bed methane gas production has been returned to the subsurface in fluid disposal wells in the area of the earthquake swarm. Because of the proximity of these disposal wells to the earthquakes, local residents and officials are concerned that the fluid disposal might have triggered the earthquakes. We have evaluated the characteristics of the seismicity using criteria proposed by Davis and Frohlich (1993) as diagnostic of seismicity induced by fluid injection. We conclude that the characteristics of the seismicity and the fluid disposal process do not constitute strong evidence that the seismicity is induced by the fluid disposal, though they do not rule out this possibility.

So here we have a USGS article stating they think there is a fault there with a depth of 2KM to 6KM deep that is 6km long runing NE....and that they DID NOT rule out the possibility of nearby fluid injection as the cause.

Hmmmmmmmm

It's HAARP!!!!! The TPTB want the good people of Trinidad CO exterminated in their depopulation agenda.

There, that theory is now out of the way. Carry on.

What about the one in Virginia?
earthquake.usgs.gov...

Felt it here in Southern Ontario. One just around this time last year hit Ottawa, and it was just around the same feeling, though this one shook my computer a bit more.

Haha, my 13 year old brother had the same freaked out reaction too. We live 18 floors up on the top, so we really feel it.

Originally posted by iSeeKEnlightenment8o5
What about the one in Virginia?
earthquake.usgs.gov...

37 degree as well...interesting
Colorado EQ - 37.070°N, 104.700°W
earthquake.usgs.gov...

Virginia EQ -Map Centered at 37°N, 80°W
earthquake.usgs.gov...

6.9 Virginia
Source: USGS

Another quake
37.975°N, 77.969°W
1 km. depth
45 km (27 miles) from Charlottsville, Virginia


Though quakes are not unusual "as they use to say", the increase of activity all of a sudden makes me wonder...
What´s going on?

I´ve been checking back some days and all the quakes that have taken place in Colorado, Denver, Virginia (magnitude 2.5 or greater) occured at a very low depth.

Did you notice?

reply to post by westcoast

The 2's & 3's are typical for Cokedale the 5's are not. I've been watching the area for sometime just out of curiosity. My hubby worked at the Trinidad dam years ago. From what I've read the release gates are open and the lake level is dropping slowly so I don't think the reservoir is to blame.

There is a drilling operation not far from the lake its been going nonstop for several years. We've been experiencing drought conditions maybe that along with drillers sucking out water it's leaving voids Idk.

We've always had droughts/drillers and little shakes but I've never felt a quake like that. I heard a rumble and the house creaked, I felt the shaking and waited for a huge blast of wind but nothing. Wind's about the only thing that gets us shaking out here so I was dumbfounded. Now that I think about it I think I felt the one earlier and blamed it on cattle bumping into our upper deck supports. I'm about 40 miles from Cokedale.

Originally posted by kro32
reply to post by Anusuia

 

Very normal for the earth in geological terms but not usual for those that live on the spot of the earthquake.

Not sure what you consider normal

ha I bet you fell dumb

Well historically Colorado quakes have been explained away by "human activity". But perhaps there is another explanation such as a large area of magma under the crust of the US experiencing higher than normal pressure? These faults aren't mechanically connected so it doesn't make sense.

She said that while Colorado has experienced several earthquakes close to Monday’s size in recent decades — a magnitude 5.3 near Denver in 1967 and a magnitude 5.7 in the state’s northwest corner in 1973 — both of those quakes were ultimately determined to have been caused by human activity, from explosives or drilling.

www.nytimes.com...

Not a thing felt here in Grand Junction. I'll ask around though to make sure. I was sleeping at the time.

Just the other day I found this new lecture on youtube by Alexander Retrov. He pinpoints the correlation between the alignment of Elenin and major earthqukes in 2010 and 2011. He further predicted a major earthquake would happen around August 17 (his best guess but it could happen later).

Well, I think I'm gonna listen a bit more to this guy because now this has happened... and this might just be the warmup quake...

You can watch the video here: www.youtube.com...