Fast Fiction

The earthquake in Indonesia that spawned the killer tsunamis was felt on the other side of the planet as it caused wells in Virginia to oscillate only an hour after the quake first struck. The water level in the well went up and down by three feet.

The epicenter for this earthquake was 9,600 miles away from the well; seismic waves travel through the Earth at about 7,400 miles per hour. The water-level oscillations started about an hour after the earthquake and were slowly dampened out over a 5-hour period. This well is 450 feet deep, finished in limestone of the Beekmantown Formation, and water enters the well via fractures or cracks in the rock. Compression and expansion of these fractures by seismic waves cause the water to be drawn in and out of the well, similar to the way bellows work.

This also goes along with Tsunami’s Ripples, Unnoticed, Washed Along Atlantic Coast - a NY Times article that details that small ripple effects were felt in the Atlantic 32 hours after the initial quake in Sumatra.