Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live Saturday

Earthquake Rocks Upstate New York

Aired April 20, 2002 - 18:13   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: A rare northeastern earthquake rocked upstate New York this morning. The magnitude 5.1 quake was centered under Jay, New York. That's a small town, 15 miles southwest of Plattsburgh.

Tremors were reported as far away as Baltimore and Cleveland. The Jay saw the greatest damage; there were reports there of broken windows all over town.

CNN's Orelon Sidney is joining us now with a closer look at all of these earthquakes. Now, Orelon, we know you're a meteorologist, but you also know a lot about this topic, and that's why we have you on.

It's amazing to me, a lot of people don't know about the fault that falls under that area.

ORELON SIDNEY, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, what happens in this area is a little thing called glacial rebound. I'll show you in a moment. It's actually kind of a theory. Folks really don't know if this is why earthquakes happen here or not, but we'll show you what we did know.

At 6:50 this morning, as you said, a 5.1 magnitude earthquake followed up by two aftershocks: at 7:04, a 4.0 magnitude; at 7:45 a 2.6 -- those are very, very hard to detect, especially as you get down to the 2.6 deal.

Most of the time, you notice, you get your earthquakes out in California. Those are the earthquakes that occur around what we call plate boundaries. This part of the nation -- here's Lake Heron -- or, excuse me -- Lake Ontario, and here's Lake Champlain -- this is New York, and this area is what we called intraplate. It's within a plate. So, you're not supposed to get earthquakes here.

But here's what we think happened. During the Ice Age, this big ice sheet covered much of New England, as about 10,000 years ago, this ice sheet started to move back, the ground was compressed. And as the ice sheet moved back, all the weight came up, and the ground started to actually rebound, thus the name glacial rebound effect.

And we think that's why we see earthquakes in this part of the world. Actually occurs all the way down south, on into parts of West Virginia -- Ohio has seen an earthquake. And we think that this is the reason those happen.

CALLAWAY: Why do we hear so much out west -- are these just as likely to happen?

SIDNEY: These are not as likely because you don't get the intraplate earthquakes as often, but believe it or not the biggest earthquake that ever occurred in the United States happened in St. Louis, back in the 1800s, bigger than any earthquake ever seen out in California. Almost as big as the one in Alaska back in 1964. But, it's pretty unusual to see these guys move.

CALLAWAY: Thanks for scaring us to death, Orelon.

SIDNEY: You're welcome.

CALLAWAY: See you a little bit later.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com