Maryland Virtual High School Earthquake!!!!!

Spring 1997

There has been another earthquake somewhere in the state of Maryland! Where? And how big?

The following seismic stations have recorded disturbances. To retrieve data click on the station and then click on the data file.

All data files contain information recorded at 50 Hz, or 50 data points per second. All data points represent displacements in millimeters. Vertical data corresponds to movement in the vertical direction (along a radius of the earth.) Horizontal data are movements in a plane tangent to the surface of the earth. Horizontal data are available for both the North / South Direction and the East / West direction. North is a positive displacement. In practice, one of these seismographs will show larger disturbances than the other.

When you click on the appropriate city/town below, you will be shown a directory of three files for your site. The file with a V at the end is for vertical displacement. The other two files are horizontal displacements: NS at the end indicates a north-south orientation while EW indicates the EW data. Clicking on each file will give you a text file of the data which you can copy. Technically, you only need one file to determine the distance and magnitude.

City or TownLatitude/LongitudeSchool
Accident, MD39.62 N 79.32 WNorthern High School
Baltimore, MD39.33 N 76.60 WBaltimore City College
Centreville, MD39.05 N 76.07 WQueen Anne's High School
Crofton, MD39.00 N 76.69 WCrofton Middle School
Gambrills, MD39.07 N 76.68 WArundel High School
Havre de Grace, MD39.55 N 76.10 WHavre de Grace High School
IndianHead,MD38.60 N 77.17 WLackey High School
NorthEast, MD39.60 N 75.94 WNorth East High School
Salisbury, MD38.37 N 75.60 WJames Bennett High School
Silver Spring, MD39.01 N 77.03 WMontgomery Blair High School
Smithsburg, MD39.65 N 77.56 WSmithsburg High School
Williamsport, MD39.60 N 77.82 WWilliamsport High School

Work together to determine the location and Richter magnitude of this earthquake. Make damage estimates if necessary. It is possible to download all the data yourself, but we want to work together on this project. Helpful resources can be found on the Earthquake Reference page.