Was 5.8 earthquake just a foreshock? Kansas geologist asks

After the shaking from the 5.8 magnitude earthquake near Pawnee, Okla., subsided Sept. 3, Tandis Bidgoli noticed something unusual.

“I was very concerned,” said Bidgoli, a geologist with the Kansas Geological Survey, “because it didn’t appear there were any foreshocks to that event.”

In other large quakes, such as the 5.7 magnitude near Prague, Okla., in 2011, there had been other, smaller earthquakes before the big one. Scientists interpreted these earlier foreshocks as signs of a big one to follow.

But there were no foreshocks in Pawnee, Bidgoli said. The fault line was new. So she worried: What if the 5.8 quake, the largest recorded earthquake in the region ever, was itself just a foreshock? What if the biggest quake ever was just hinting at an even bigger quake to follow?

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article109811747.html