Anonymous ID: 4d1d07 Jan. 15, 2020, 3:36 p.m. No.7824374   🗄️.is đź”—kun

>>7824305

You are correct about a Kansas quake being worse, but it stops there.

The western United States lies along the boundaries of major tectonic plates that make up the Earth’s crust—the North American Plate and the ocean plates to the west. These plates are moving against each other, breaking up the crust along many faults like the San Andreas Fault. Faults in the East are less active and lie entirely within the North American Plate.

Eastern North America has older rocks, some of which formed hundreds of millions of years before those in the West. These older formations have been exposed to extreme pressures and temperatures, making them harder and often denser. Faults in these older rocks have also had more time to heal, which allows seismic waves to cross them more effectively when an earthquake occurs.

In contrast, rocks in the West are younger and broken up by faults that are often younger and have had less time to heal. So when an earthquake occurs, more of the seismic wave energy is absorbed by the faults and the energy doesn’t spread as efficiently.

 

Sauce: https://granitegeek.concordmonitor.com/2018/04/24/earthquakes-in-the-east-are-felt-over-larger-areas-even-though-theyre-less-powerful/