How did a 6.6 magnitude earthquake 90 years ago transform seismology in Utah?

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Editor's Note: This article is part of a series reviewing Utah state and national history for the Historical section of KSL.com.

SALT LAKE CITY — 1934 was an interesting year in Utah, to say the least.

It remains the state's hottest year on record and third driest, as drought conditions crept into a state already struggling through the depths of the Great Depression. It's also when one of the largest earthquakes in state history struck northern Utah and the Wasatch Front.

That quake, whose epicenter was north of the Great Salt Lake, sent tremors as far south as Richfield, as well as into parts of Idaho, Nevada and Wyoming exactly 90 years ago Tuesday. Two people died and thousands of structures were damaged, according to state and federal reports. It was later determined to be a 6.6 magnitude earthquake.

As the Utah State Historical Society wrote in 1995, reviewing the history of the earthquake, it also caused “panic and anxiety to many in northern Utah.”

A wake-up call in the morning

As Utahns may recall from the 5.7 magnitude earthquake that rocked the Wasatch Region nearly four years ago, the 1934 quake occurred relatively early in the day.

Its epicenter was within the Hansel Valley near the small – and now abandoned – town of Kelton in Box Elder County, shortly after 8 a.m. on March 12, 1934. It produced several aftershocks over the next few months, including earthquakes as strong as 5.6 degrees in April and May of that year.

“Dishes fell, plaster cracked, and furniture was moved in the rooms,” the Ogden Standard-Examiner reported that day. “One woman said she woke up when her bed rolled on its wheels and hit a rocking chair.”

The outlet reported others' reactions to the incident. One woman said she was “startled” when the typewriter slid into her lap and the doors of filing cabinets opened around her in the building where she worked.

Two people died in accidents. Ida Venable Atkinson, a 21-year-old woman from Ogden, died of a heart attack caused by the earthquake that began shaking, the Salt Lake Telegram reported at the time. State historians suggest that she was bedridden with illness for about two weeks before the quake and was “possibly traumatized” by the violent quake.

Charles Bethell, 55, a pipefitter for the Salt Lake City Water Department, was seriously injured when the trench he was working in collapsed after all the shaking, and he died a day later at LDS Hospital.

Newspapers reported all sorts of other influences. Utah schools were closed for the rest of the day after an aftershock was reported later in the morning. Children returned to classes two days after the earthquake.

Civil Works Department workers were in the middle of painting murals at the top of the rotunda at the Utah Capitol when the storm hit, causing the scaffolding they were on to sway back and forth. But it held out and the workers were not injured. As in 2020, damage may have been reported to the statue of Angel Moroni atop the Salt Lake Temple.

“Opinions were divided this afternoon on whether the angel Moroni … had risen to the top and tipped over slightly on its base,” the Deseret News reported on the day of the quake, adding that temple engineers believed the shaking caused the trumpet to shift “a few points.” . South and East.” The trumpet fell completely from the statue in 2020.

The Utah Geological Survey recorded more than 2,300 structures with at least some damage in the final report. Many Utah residents reported fallen chimneys, broken windows, cracked walls and falling plaster, according to Cheryl Peterson, a former spokeswoman for the University of Utah seismic stations, who compiled a history of the event for the university.

She added that the earthquake also caused “several fissures or fissures” in the ground near the epicenter, and also destroyed a water source in the nearby Snowville area. Two public buildings were abandoned, including a three-story brick building at Utah State University that was reportedly “divided from top to bottom.”

Final lessons learned

In many ways, the 1934 earthquake helped fill several key knowledge gaps.

Researchers began to suspect in the 19th century that there was some sort of rogue activity in Utah, but they didn't know as much about the Wasatch Front in 1934 as experts do today. The Utah State Historical Society notes that the 1934 earthquake became “one of the first earthquakes in the Utah area to show evidence of historical faulting.”

Charles Richter, inventor of the Richter scale, studied the quake and used it to “determine its famous magnitude scale,” which was unveiled a year after the event, state historians wrote.

Experts began placing seismic stations around Utah to research and study quakes afterward, Chris Merritt, Utah State Historic Preservation Officer, wrote about the quake.

These investments at that time continue to yield a better understanding of earthquakes today. For example, the 2020 earthquake helped researchers fine-tune the location and depth of the Wasatch Fault based on all the information collected by seismometers.

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Carter Williams is an award-winning reporter who covers general and foreign news, history and sports for KSL.com.

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