2011 Virginia earthquake
The USGS found that the farthest landslide from the 2011 Virginia earthquake was from the epicenter. This is by far the greatest landslide distance recorded from any other earthquake of similar magnitude. Previous studies of worldwide earthquakes indicated that landslides occurred no farther than from the epicenter of a magnitude 5.8 earthquake. The study suggested that the added information about East Coast earthquakes may prompt a revision of equations that predict ground shaking. "What makes this new study so unique is that it provides direct observational evidence from the largest earthquake to occur in more than 100 years in the eastern U.S. Now that we know more about the power of East Coast earthquakes, equations that predict ground shaking might need to be revised."
2011 Virginia earthquake
The earthquake prompted research that revealed that the farthest landslide from the epicenter was , by far the greatest landslide distance recorded from any other earthquake of similar magnitude. Previous studies of worldwide earthquakes indicated that landslides occurred no farther than from the epicenter of a magnitude 5.8 earthquake. The Virginia earthquake study suggested that the added information about East Coast earthquakes may prompt a revision of equations that predict ground shaking.
The earthquake occurred in the Virginia Seismic Zone, located in the Piedmont region. The Virginia Piedmont area was formed originally as part of a zone of repeated continental collisions that created the ancestral Appalachian Mountains, a process that started during the Ordovician period with the Taconic orogeny and finished during the Carboniferous Period with the Alleghanian orogeny. The reverse faults formed during the various orogenies were partly reactivated as normal faults in extension during the Mesozoic Era as the supercontinent Pangaea broke apart. During the Cenozoic Era, compression from the opening and spreading of the Atlantic has caused some of these structures to be reactivated in a reverse sense.