As you've probably seen in local news channels, Irving experienced three earthquakes over the weekend. The strongest was a magnitude 3.4 in the richter scale a little after 11 p.m. on Sept 29th with the center at the corner of Rochelle Rd and MacArthur Blvd in North Irving. The second 3.1 earthquake hit West Dallas near Irving City limits within minutes. A third tremor was hit near the University of Dallas campus in Irving late Sunday night.
Irving’s emergency operations center received more than 300 calls, mostly asking about what had happened.
The earthquakes were a common topic in social sites like facebook among Irving residents. Many had a good laugh, posting pics as the one shown on the bottom. Others expressed a real concern and blamed the gas well drilling.
One Irving resident described a "loud boom" and 4 to 5 seconds of shaking. Aftershocks were felt in surrounding cities such as Euless and Grapevine. A resident of Grapevine posted, "It shook my room twice and I could tell it was something strange."
WFAA Channel 8 asked an expert, Dr. Brian Stump who is working with the SMU earthquake investigation team, to address a couple of questions. The following is taken from the WFAA website:
Katalina Basques wanted to know why the earthquakes are only happening at night and not during the day.
"If you are out and about moving around, you probably didn't feel them, and so if they occurred during the daytime you might not have felt them," Stump replied. "But if they happened at night when it is a little quieter, you can feel the smaller earthquakes."
Larry Embry asked: "Do you anticipate the quakes in this area becoming more violent or prevalent in the near future?"
"Earthquake prediction is one of those things we don't do very well," Stump said. "If we look at the USGS scale for risk, we're at a very small risk for even moderate size earthquakes."
The following is 20 year data for earthquakes in the Irving area. As can be seen, most of the activity started after October, 2008.
U. S. G E O L O G I C A L S U R V E Y
E A R T H Q U A K E D A T A B A S E
FILE CREATED: Sun Sep 30 04:35:20 2012
Circle Search Earthquakes= 49
Circle Center Point Latitude: 32.847N Longitude: 96.956W
Radius: 100.000 km
Catalog Used: PDE
Date Range: 1992/08/01 to 2012/08/29
Data Selection: Historical & Preliminary Data
CAT YEAR MO DA ORIG TIME LAT LONG DEP MAGNITUDE IEM DTSVNWG DIST
NFO km
TF
PDE 1997 05 31 032641.34 33.18 -95.97 5 3.4 LgGS .F. ....... 99
PDE 2008 10 31 042552.29 32.80 -97.02 5 2.6 LgGS 3F. ....... 7
PDE 2008 10 31 050154.91 32.84 -97.03 5 3.0 LgGS 4F. ....... 6
PDE 2008 10 31 053345.62 32.87 -96.97 5 2.6 LgGS ... ....... 3
PDE 2008 10 31 054631 32.76 -97.02 5 2.5 LgGS ... ....... 11
PDE 2008 10 31 062344.12 32.80 -97.04 5 2.6 LgGS ... ....... 9
PDE 2008 10 31 075823.91 32.83 -97.01 5 2.9 LgGS .F. ....... 5
PDE 2008 10 31 205418.81 32.83 -97.03 5 2.9 LgGS .F. ....... 6
PDE 2008 10 31 210101.77 32.79 -97.03 5 2.9 LgGS .F. ....... 9
PDE 2008 11 01 115346.65 32.76 -97.04 5 2.5 LgGS ... ....... 11
PDE 2008 11 01 115430.19 32.87 -96.97 5 2.7 LgGS 3F. ....... 3
PDE 2009 05 16 162406.57 32.79 -97.02 8 3.3 LgGS 4F. ....... 8
PDE 2009 05 16 165837.69 32.85 -97.10 5 3.0 LgGS ... ....... 13
PDE 2009 05 16 175309.36 32.77 -97.12 5 2.7 LgGS 2F. ....... 17
PDE 2009 05 16 180223 32.79 -97.02 5 2.6 LgGS .F. ....... 8
PDE 2009 06 02 200645.38 32.35 -97.40 5 2.8 LgGS 3F. ....... 69
PDE 2009 06 07 225623.70 32.28 -97.35 5 2.6 LgGS 3F. ....... 72
PDE 2009 06 08 130212 32.35 -97.40 5 2.4 LgGS 2F. ....... 69
PDE 2009 06 09 221016.20 32.26 -97.40 5 2.3 LgGS .F. ....... 76
PDE 2009 06 09 231955 32.35 -97.40 5 2.0 LgGS .F. ....... 69
PDE 2009 06 27 033057.48 32.30 -97.45 5 2.4 LgGS 2F. ....... 76
PDE 2009 07 10 115840 32.35 -97.32 5 2.0 LgGS .F. ....... 64
PDE 2009 09 30 094314.94 32.35 -97.41 5 2.4 LgGS 2F. ....... 68
PDE 2009 10 01 115633 32.32 -97.24 5 2.3 LgGS .F. ....... 64
PDE 2009 12 05 053011.84 32.41 -97.00 5 2.9 LgGS 3F. ....... 48
PDE 2010 11 08 040556.20 32.26 -97.39 5 2.5 LgGS 2F. ....... 76
PDE 2010 11 12 090349.79 32.36 -97.25 5 2.1 LgGS .F. ....... 60
PDE-W 2011 06 12 165148.06 32.24 -97.00 5 2.7 LgGS 4F. ....... 67
PDE-W 2011 06 25 053852.97 32.37 -97.05 5 2.5 LgGS 4F. ....... 53
PDE-W 2011 07 17 065800.04 32.42 -97.08 5 3.0 LgGS 4F. ....... 48
PDE-W 2011 08 01 043326.36 32.91 -96.93 5 2.2 LgGS .F. ....... 7
PDE-W 2011 08 07 044531.35 32.83 -97.04 5 2.6 LgGS 3F. ....... 7
PDE-W 2011 09 23 042122.36 32.65 -97.14 5 2.4 LgGS 3F. ....... 27
PDE-W 2011 12 07 225419.15 32.42 -97.11 5 2.7 LgGS 4F. ....... 49
PDE-W 2012 01 06 061147.80 32.78 -96.68 5 2.1 LgGS 3F. ....... 26
PDE-W 2012 01 18 223054.96 32.37 -97.49 5 3.3 LgGS 4F. ....... 72
PDE-Q 2012 06 04 043737.95 32.36 -97.34 5 2.3 LgGS .F. ....... 65
PDE-Q 2012 06 15 070233.17 32.46 -97.27 5 3.3 LgGS 4F. ....... 51
PDE-Q 2012 06 23 054432.47 32.40 -97.25 5 2.1 LgGS .F. ....... 56
PDE-Q 2012 06 24 174644.45 32.47 -97.29 5 3.5 LgGS 4F. ....... 51
PDE-Q 2012 06 25 055909.52 32.44 -97.27 5 2.3 LgGS 3F. ....... 53
PDE-Q 2012 06 26 040320.84 32.36 -97.23 5 2.5 LgGS 3F. ....... 60
PDE-Q 2012 06 29 182731.85 32.37 -97.31 5 2.3 LgGS .F. ....... 62
PDE-Q 2012 07 06 082656.27 32.43 -97.28 5 2.7 LgGS 3F. ....... 55
PDE-Q 2012 07 10 022244.16 32.48 -97.27 5 2.4 LgGS .F. ....... 50
PDE-Q 2012 07 10 164652.55 32.44 -97.29 5 2.8 LgGS 3F. ....... 54
PDE-Q 2012 07 11 015722 32.44 -97.24 5 2.1 LgGS .F. ....... 52
PDE-Q 2012 07 13 122750.41 32.50 -97.32 5 2.7 LgGS 3F. ....... 51
PDE-Q 2012 07 28 023217.59 32.36 -97.38 6 2.2 LgGS 3F. ....... 66
