We're All Shook Up !

As many of you have heard by now, the earth moved under our feet recently. On Thursday December 18, at 6:18 pm local time, there was a 6.0(ish) earthquake centered about 70 kilometers north of Valparaiso. Charlene and I were in a grocery store in downtown Valparaiso when we felt the floor vibrating. (That lasted between 5 and 10 seconds.) We looked at each other and speculated about the possibility of a quake and then noticed that the hanging signs were shaking. It felt like it could have been a piece of heavy (very heavy!) equipment driving by and no one else in the store seemed to bat an eye. It wasn't until we arrived home and checked our email that we discovered that we had experienced our first earthquake.
The following morning at 6:30, while in bed, I felt what turned out to be an aftershock. Until it was confirmed later that day, I honestly wasn't sure whether I had drempt it or felt it!
Although many people report significant tremors, what we experienced was very minor and we haven't seen or heard of any damage.

The last major quake in this area was in 1985. That one prompted changes to the building codes and most buildings today have either survived quakes in the past or are new enough to have earthquake proof technology in their design. Until yesterday, we weren't aware of the two different types of earthquake measurement. The most common is the Richter scale that measures magnitude, but there is also the Mercalli scale. The "Modified Mercalli Intensity" value assigned to a specific site after an earthquake has a more meaningful measure of severity to the nonscientist than the magnitude because intensity refers to the effects actually experienced at that place. (glasses rattling, furniture moving , etc)

There is an expression here that says "God built this country with all of his leftovers. That is why Chile has deserts, mountains, volcanoes, earthquakes, etc."
Interesting place!

Before coming to Chile, I had talked about the desire to experience a small quake. Well . . . I got my wish . . . it also reminded me to be careful about future wishes!

That's our earthquake story! We have a couple of blogs in progress and hope to have one of them posted shortly after Christmas.

Enjoy the holidays!

Love
Norm and Charlene