Spirit Daily

From Prophets To Geologists, Warnings Issued For Potential East Coast Quake

By Michael H. Brown

"Several cities will be shaken down and swallowed up by earthquakes" (alleged secret of LaSalette)

It was just over a week ago that Upstate New York found itself at the epicenter of a quake that caused shaking as far south as Maryland. 

That a quake of such strength (magnitude-5) could occur in that region seemed to surprise many, but the fact is that larger tremors have happened in the past and could occur on the East Coast or elsewhere in North America as part of a future purification.

Was the quake of April 20 a preview? 

Let's state from the outset that the most likely regions of seismic disturbance remain Alaska, Southern California, San Francisco, Seattle, Hawaii, and Missouri -- roughly in that order. They are the places where a truly large quake is most likely to erupt -- with the single most dangerous place Los Angeles. Southern California (which we will focus on in a separate report) has a rate of earthquake activity 100 times that of New York.

Worldwide, the greatest disaster-in-waiting, seismically speaking, is Tokyo -- a metro area half again larger than New York.

But some of those claiming prophetic experiences emphasize the likelihood that the "big one" could occur where least expected -- and the recent New York tremor brought home the possibility of a truly major East Coast disturbance. Since 1730 New York State has had more than 400 quakes of magnitude-2 or greater. Seismologists have told Spirit Daily there is a complex of largely unfathomable faults that runs along and under the Atlantic from Boston to Charleston, South Carolina, where a major quake brought down at least 14,000 chimneys and damaged many downtown structures in 1886. That quake, at least a magnitude-6 (ten times stronger than what hit upstate), may have been from a major system of faults under Virginia and the Carolinas.

"A fault system like this changes our way of thinking about the seismic hazard along the East Coast," said one scientist, citing the work of one seismologist we consulted, Dr. Pradeep Talwani . "Prior to this, we thought that, except for the Charleston area, the eastern United States is basically without risk of large earthquakes."

But that's not true; and as we move into the steeper curve of chastisement and intensified regional events we need to note that New York City itself can be the center of disturbance. In fact, the nation's largest city was the epicenter of a magnitude-5 in 1884. "An earthquake shock, remarkably severe for this part of the country, terrified the inhabitants of the Middle and Eastern States yesterday afternoon," reported The New York Times, adding that "every tall steeple" in the city swayed, pictures and lamps were thrown, glasses and crockery clashed, horses raised their heads in horror, a two-ton safe at a hotel moved three inches, and pedestrians halted on street corners bewildered or in horror.

Some thought it was the "doom of the wicked." As in our own time, there was strange weather. "New York has been experiencing a remarkable summer, the like of which is not known to the memory of man, and yesterday the astonishment which had seized upon all at the succession of cold storms and winds in a season supposed to be characterized exclusively by scorching days and uncomfortable nights, culminated in a genuine shock of earthquake," noted The Times.

Eerie it was, occurring when the overhead clouds were blackest and the air below moist and sticky -- as strange weather also accompanied last week's Upstate New York temblor! These are signs and we do well to heed them. We also do well to recognize "coincidence." Note, for example, that the 1884 New York quake occurred just two years before Charleston in what seemed like a strange juxtaposition. Around the world we are now seeing the same: quakes occurring in sudden clusters at widely disparate locations.  

We asked Dr. Klaus Jacob of Columbia University, one of the world's leading experts, about the prospects of a calamitous East Coast quake and he explained that there was a "rift" left from the parting of Europe and Africa from North America in ancient times and that aspects of this rift are visible just outside of New York along the New Jersey Palisades. 

The collision caused a suture-like geological formation known as "Cameron's Line" which runs through the Bronx, down Manhattan's East River -- and all the way down to South Carolina. 

"Since New York is a part of that rifted margin, there is a lot of local faulting, including one crossing 125th Street," said the scientist. The strongest quake to hit New York State -- that we know of -- was a magnitude-6 at the border with Canada in 1944.

Nor is New York alone. A shaking in the east can affect areas west of the Mississippi. The Charleston event was felt as far west as Omaha -- and other cities are within range of hidden faults. Boston had an earthquake that was part of an event felt from Halifax in Nova Scotia to the Chesapeake Bay in 1755, and the magnitude was estimated to have been 6 to 6.5 -- the largest event for the eastern United States in recorded history, according to some estimates.

A similar event occurred offshore of Canada at Grand Banks and actually may have been more powerful -- a magnitude-7.2.  

It generated a tidal wave that caused major damage.

Dr. Klaus says that New York could experience earthquakes of similar magnitude.  

That is a 2,000-year event, according to some researchers, and one a step lower, at magnitude-6, happens every 600 years -- but no one is really sure of such cycles nor when such magnitudes last occurred. If even a magnitude-6 occurred in an area as densely populated as New York City (the metro area of which has seven percent of the U.S. population), or a city like Philadelphia (which has very old, collapse-prone structures), fatalities would exceed and perhaps greatly exceed a disaster like September 11. 

In Alaska and California, quakes of magnitude-8 and even magnitude-9 have occurred. 

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