Double Whammie! Earthquake in Salt Lake City and Covid-19 Virus

Have you felt like there is a "dark cloud" over your head lately?  First it's the tiny virus COVID-19, we have to stay home, practice social distancing, wash our hands for twenty seconds after touching everything. Then, we have an earthquake and the Angel Moroni drops his trumpet!  What. In. The. World. Is. Happening?

The earthquake was a big one...a 5.7. Since we are "sheltering at home", you might have some time to learn about earthquakes along the Wasatch front.  Click on this link if you want to track the aftershocks that are still happening today in Magna, Utah. Or even in California...they get earthquakes everyday...somewhere...because they can, I guess. https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/uu60366502/executive

The quake was centered in Magna, Utah which is right on the coastline of the Great Salt Lake.  The shaker was rather shallow, the center being 6 miles beneath the surface.  Last year we had small little shakers in Bluffdale and they measured in the 3.0 range.  So yesterday's quake was a 5.7.  Let's look at this in terms of TNT.

A 3.0 quake can be compared to 1000 pounds of TNT. That's half a ton of explosives.  Now our 5.7 could be compared to 6000 tons of TNT!  That's like the weight of 30 blue whales, or 75% of the Eiffel Tower. (I love quantitative math!)  

So what happens next?  Well, geologists don't know.  Earthquakes are harder to predict than weather.  We could have another of the same measure, or we could have smaller ones, or the BIG ONE!  It could happen any second. Like right NOW! Or NOW! OR NOW!  Or not.  

The Wasatch fault isn't one big fault.  It's broken up into segments about 25 miles long.  

These faults don't move all at the same time.  The Provo, Nephi, Weber faults have had large earthquakes in the last 300-700 years. So we could say we are "overdue" for another big one.  

We will have aftershocks for maybe a few days, weeks or months.  The earth that was displaced has to settle down.  The main thing is not to panic.  You don't need anymore toilet paper!!  It's good to have a plan, like knowing where your emergency kits are. If you are really nervous, put your emergency kits in the back of your car and park the car outside, not in the garage.  This way, if things start to get "real" again, you have a plan of escape afterwards.  

So, we shouldn't act like this is not a big deal.  Look at the coronavirus pushing across the world!  A pandemic for Pete's sake!  We need to remain calm and be prepared.  Not stupid.  Stupid people ruin everything!