5.1 Earthquake off Cuba's northern coastline this afternoon

I think, due to location & felt range, this does deserve it's own thread. Otherwise, if this was anywhere where the magnitude or frequency is common, I'd not bother with a thread.

As per the USGS, this took a bunch of folks by surprise.

M5.1 - 24km NNW of Corralillo, Cuba 2014-01-09 20:57:43 UTC

Location
23.189°N 80.677°W depth=10.0km (6.2mi)

Nearby Cities
24km (15mi) NNW of Corralillo, Cuba
36km (22mi) NE of Marti, Cuba
51km (32mi) N of Los Arabos, Cuba
56km (35mi) ENE of Cardenas, Cuba
174km (108mi) E of Havana, Cuba

The felt report section has it being felt as far as here:

Daytona Beach (32119) FL United States of America 2 1 661 km

There's one from NC, too, but I think that person may have felt a local one close to the same time, it's listed as a 2-something near them.

News report out of Orlando. Not much to the report, but it's an example for the "blip" this made in the news. Not anything too major, but enough to get attention for the area it's in.

Earthquake-Report's page has a number of first-person accounts from around the state. Clearly, people not on ground level got a movement surprise, hah.

And before anyone asks, no I have no idea if this is a forewarning of sorts. It could be all it does there, it could be a precursor, dunno. I'm sure one of our resident experts would be able to weigh in on that better than I can.

reply to post by Nyiah


Wow, I can't believe there aren't any Floridian ATSer's that didn't feel this quake or find it peculiar? Especially since the following data applies to it.
USGS

The region of the January 9 earthquake is relatively quiet seismically. Only 6 documented events ranging from M3.0-5.6 occurred over the past 75 years within 200 km of the epicenter. The M5.6 event, which occurred in 1939, also took place along the northern coast of Cuba in the vicinity of the Nortecubana Fault system. The January 9 event occurred 686 km ESE of the September 2006 M5.8 Gulf of Mexico earthquake.

reply to post by whatnext21


They may have, but probably didn't realize it. It seems people up off the ground in office buildings & highrises had better odds of feeling the sway. In hindsight, I'm positive I did feel it. In the QW '14 thread, I explained that I'd been doing a dry run of our taxes earlier in the afternoon, and had gotten after the kids for wiggling on the bed (I was sitting comfy calculating & such, they were watching TV) Thinking back, I'm fairly sure one of the more wiggly wiggles was the quake & not them. Hindsight's 20/20, I got after them for it and it probably wasn't them at all Considering Fairly Oddparents had just wrapped up & Sanjay & Craig was starting (i.e 4pm eastern) this lines up with the time of the quake south of us.

FWIW, we're in a single level condo complex, so we're ground level. It really felt like a wiggle worm who can't sit still moving on the bed, I bet others didn't notice.

reply to post by Nyiah

I hope all is cool...I'll be there in 3 weeks!

I'm in Broward County (South Florida) and I didn't feel a thing, however I was busy right around the time this happened. Local news reports say that a few people in the Keys and in Dade and one or two people in Broward felt it.

I

Well here in Orlando I didn't feel a thing...I don't know so much about the geology here as far as the bedrock is concerned but I was 70 mi. from the one that happened in VA a couple years back...the one that damaged monuments in DC. That was felt up and down the east coast because the bedrock in that area. I guess the ground is softer around here.

reply to post by Nyiah


20:57:43 UTC is roughly 4pm est.

I work in Coral Gables which is part of the greater miami area.

I'm in a building and didn't feel a thing.

More than likely people farther south felt it more. Probably if you were in the keys.

Not sure how people north of us felt it.