Friday, November 13, 2009

Small earthquake during President Obama's visit to Japan

We had a small earthquake here in Tokyo this morning. Actually very small, M=4.1 (JMA), 50 km deep with epicenter in Tokyo Bay, at 4:23 AM JST. It was strong enough to awaken my wife Gisela, but I slept through it. President Obama is here in Tokyo, and dominating the news. He might have felt it.

The following are images of the intensity map from the Japan Meteorological Agency web site, http://www.jma.go.jp/en/quake/. These show the instrumental intensities with three different scales.


According to the JMA web site as of 9:00 AM local time, the details are:

"Earthquake Information (Information about Seismic Intensity at each site)
Issued at 04:33 JST 14 Nov 2009

Occurred at (JST) Latitude
(degree)
Longitude
(degree)
Depth Magnitude Region Name
04:23 JST 14 Nov 2009 35.4N 139.8E 50km 4.1 Tokyo-wan