Nov. 6, 2012 The 2011 Mineral, Virginia M-5.8 earthquake was
felt over an extraordinarily large area. A new study details
landslides triggered by the earthquake at distances four times
greater and over an area 20 times larger than previously
documented for M-5.8 earthquakes worldwide. The study, to be
published in the December issue of the Bulletin of the
Seismological Society of America (BSSA), describes physical
confirmation of previous observations that ground shaking from
earthquakes in the eastern U.S. travels farther than in the
western U.S, a plate-boundary region. U.S. Geological Survey
scientists Randall W. Jibson, who is scheduled to present his
findings on Nov. 6 at the annual meeting of the Geological
Society of America, and co-author Edwin L. Harp painstakingly
mapped rock falls to determine the distance limits from the
epicenter to compare with previously documented earthquakes. The
2011 Virginia earthquake was the largest earthquake in the
eastern U.S. since 1897. Although it did not produce la