Three-quarters of the way through my Physical Geology final exam this afternoon, the room shook and a low rumble propagated through our building. The students, many of whom were in the area on 9/11, instantly looked up with a very concerned "Was that a bomb?" look on their faces. To assuage their fears, and because I've previously heard similar rumbles coming from our HVAC ducts, I told them that it was just the cooling system, and not to worry.

Turns out I was wrong: it was a small earthquake with an epicenter about 1 km from here (we're about 1 km west of Annandale proper, and the USGS suggests it was 2km southwest of Annandale; see map below).

Almost on the epicenter of our own little quake! For us east-coasters, that's a big deal!

WTOP reported on it (Thanks to Ron Schott for forwarding me this link).

Here's the USGS quake page on the event.

Here's the Maryland Geologic Survey's seismometry. (source of image above, which is in Eastern Standard Time, not Daylight)

Here's the Washington Post's (brief) treatment of it.

I've gotta say, Ron Schott's up on it -- within an hour of the seismic event, he had e-mailed Tuff Cookie and I to ask about it. Pretty prompt! Thanks, Ron.


Update: Here's the Google Map showing the epicenter (green arrow). I've circled the building where I was giving the exam in the green circle:

Also: Here's the intensity map as it looked after I logged on and completed the "Did You Feel It?" survey:

Labels: dc, earthquakes, nova