Wednesday, June 23, 2010

The Earth's got moves you've never seen


The U.S. Geological Survey agency has been compiling responses to the 1:41 p.m., 5.0 Richter-scale quake in some country to the north. It occurred 12 miles beneath the Earth's surface and lasted about 30 seconds, the USGS said.

Here are the responses, broken into towns, intensity, number of responses and distance from the episode, in kilometers, because you should've learned the metric system in the 1970s like Jimmy Carter wanted.

In Kingston, it felt like a 2, from 25 responses. In Catskill and Ellenville, the report says it felt like a 3. In my desk, it felt like a zero because I'm originally from Peru and anything below 6 there causes less panic than rain.

Also from the USGS, a winning lead sentence: "There's a 100 percent chance of an earthquake today."