Earthquakes shake northeastern Ohio | News, sports, jobs

With snow falling at an average of one to two inches per hour early on January 17, the remarkable winter storm was the main event on the minds of most Trumbull County residents—so it should come as no surprise that another natural event that occurred that morning went unnoticed.

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ Remote Independent Seismic Network detected a 1.0-magnitude earthquake off Bell South Road near Wilson Sharpsville Road in Fowler. The earthquake occurred around 3:15 a.m. at a depth of 5.1 miles.

The quake is one of 18 so far this year in Ohio — a “very high” number, according to Jeff Fox, a seismologist with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. He said ODNR typically detects two or three earthquakes each month.

“We haven’t really seen that many earthquakes in a short period of time that I can remember,” Fox said.

The bulk of this year’s earthquakes — 12 — have been recorded northwest of the valley in Lake County, Fox said, along a fault line of unknown length that extends 4 or 5 miles under Lake Erie.

While it’s not clear exactly what caused the activity in Lake County, Fox said it may be seismic activity after a magnitude 4 earthquake in the summer of 2019 in that area.

He said aftershocks after this period of time are “a bit unusual but not entirely unprecedented.”

Earthquakes occur along fault lines, usually when stress builds up. The force of friction holds the fault together until the stress becomes too great and the fault slips, causing an earthquake. The entire fault surface does not necessarily slide at the same time because the rock is elastic, which means it can deform and regain its shape.

Fox said stress is often transmitted to other parts of the fault that are “closed” by irregularities such as bulges, stopping the rupture. When stress overcomes friction again, another earthquake will occur along the same fault.

This may be the case with Lake County earthquakes, he said, as they appear to occur from east to west.

geological structure

As for the Fowler earthquake, Fox said it was “standard background tectonic activity” unrelated to an entirely different earthquake.

“Northeast Ohio is geologically complex,” he said.

He said Ohio’s “basement structure” – the oldest rock completely buried beneath the surface – is the remnants of ancient mountain ranges that were completely eroded.

“Since they have been pushed and folded back through the cycle of mountain building and buried, the natural stresses that have built up in the crust — there is movement in it from time to time,” Fox said.

The glaciers that once covered Ohio have also put pressure on the crust, Fox said, and now the crust is starting to “rebound.”

The last two earthquakes were in Trumbull County in July and August 2014 — earthquakes of magnitude 1.7 and 2.1, both at a depth of 1.9 miles and both with two epicenters near Mono Park off North Main Street in Niles, according to ODNR data.

Mahoning County experienced six earthquakes in March 2014—four of which occurred on March 10 at a depth of about 3.1 miles off Cowden Road in Louisville, less than a mile from the Pennsylvania border. The other two earthquakes occurred on March 5 and 11 in the same area. They were all between 2.1 and 3.0 degrees.

“There is all sorts of long-term vulnerabilities in … the deep rocks in the Mahoning County area,” said Jeffrey Dick, coordinator of the geology program at Youngstown State University.

the size

Dick, 65, grew up in Southern California and lived in the Los Angeles area when the 6.6-magnitude Sylmar earthquake shook the area.

“I thought my mom was shaking me, waking me up to go to school — but my bed was moving, like an evil spirit,” Dick said. “These are the things that grab your attention.”

Even after spending most of his life in Ohio, where earthquakes are rarely felt, Dick said he remembers the feeling of “real earthquakes.”

Earthquakes less than 2.5 degrees are not usually felt by people – although dogs sometimes notice them – and earthquakes less than 4.5 or 5 do not cause noticeable damage.

Dick explained that for every whole number on the Richter scale, which measures earthquakes, the energy of an earthquake goes up tenfold. 3.0 earthquake with a magnitude of 10 earthquake with a magnitude of 10 2.0 earthquake; The power of a 4.0 is 100 2.0s and 5.0 has a power of 1000 2.0s.

Ohio has been hit by earthquakes of magnitude 5 that have caused damage in the past, most recently in 1986 – you guessed it – Lake County.

The largest earthquake ever recorded in the state was the one that hit Anna Town on March 9, 1937, according to the Ohio History Connection. Estimated to be 5.4 degrees and causing damage to every chimney in Anna and cracking and separating walls in the school.

The magnitude of an earthquake depends on the rock’s hardness, the size of the fault, and the distance the fault slips.

If seismologists can get a better idea of ​​the size of large fault lines, they can determine whether these faults are capable of generating earthquakes of magnitude 5 or higher. Some research suggests Ohio can generate a magnitude-6 earthquake, Fox said.

“It’s a low probability, but the probability is not zero either,” Fox said.

Dick said he doesn’t think Ohio has the potential to cause a magnitude-6 earthquake because there isn’t enough pressure building up in the rocks — but the big mid-continent earthquakes have occurred and caused damage.

From December 1811 to March 1812, a series of earthquakes struck New Madrid, Missouri, the largest of which was estimated at 8.8, according to the New Madrid website. Reports from that time indicate that the earthquake reversed the flow of the Mississippi River for several hours, created a lake, destroyed a forest and drowned the inhabitants of a Native American village.

earthquake tracking

Fox said that since 2016, ODNR has been using a network of 26 remote, solar-powered seismometers to detect earthquakes and send data back to Delaware County seismologists in real time.

An ODNR seismograph is located west of Youngstown Kingsville Road and north of Davis Peck Road in Gustavus, according to ODNR’s interactive seismic center map. Another is located near the southern end of Salem Reservoir in the center of a town in Columbiana County. The map shows that Geauga and Lake counties also host ODNR seismographs.

Dick said YSU also has a seismometer that’s been in the university for about 20 years. Additionally, after the 2.7 and 4.0 earthquakes in Youngstown near Interstate 680 on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve 2011, the USGS installed an advanced seismograph in the area, Dick said.

Information collected by seismographs can be used to determine where faults are and whether faults are large enough to cause devastating earthquakes. In turn, this can help determine where to build earthquake-prone infrastructure such as homes, dams, and power plants.

Fox said a series of small earthquakes in Lake County is beginning to outline this fault line.

“The earthquakes kind of help us determine which direction the fault lines up,” Fox said. “We put them on the map as points, but they’re not really points, they’re linear and planar features.”

If you look at earthquakes like the Lake County earthquake, Fox said, “We can learn from them and they’re not big enough to do any damage — they’re good in that respect.”

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