Oklahoma Hit By Its Strongest-Ever Recorded Quake 202
First time accepted submitter Wheelie_boy writes "No word yet on hell freezing over, but Oklahoma experienced a 5.6 magnitude earthquake early Sunday morning. This is the largest quake ever recorded in the state. Only minor damage and no casualties have been reported."
I'm in OK right now, felt the quake last night. (Score:3)
I'm in OK for business, and the quake got me out of bed last night.
I grabbed clothes and rushed downstairs ready to get out of the building, if needed, but when I got down there no one else was panicking or anything, so I supposed I was the only one who over-reacted. It was about 11pm.
It was pretty intense - I lived near San Diego for six years, and felt plenty of tremors, but the quake last night was the scariest I've felt. Possibly because I wasn't on the ground floor of the hotel.
Other than that, it wasn't a big deal. No one was streaming from the hotel and there weren't throngs of people screaming. There were lots of people calling the front desk asking if there had been an accident (no one could believe that it was a quake).
Interestingly, there was another quake the night before as well, a 4.2 (the guy at the front desk told me). That one didn't even wake me up though.
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I grew up here in Oklahoma, and we never had an earthquake. The first earthquake I ever knew about in Oklahoma was in 2007. I barely recognized it for what it was. It seemed like there was a loud buzz and then the house just kind of went "whump" lik
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I think that the reason you did not see people streaming from buildings or doing anything is because nobody knows what they are supposed to do in an earthquake.
Ironical. You're actually not supposed to run out of a building during an earthquake. So by not knowing what to do, they did the right thing.
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Well, that is probably because you are more likely to hurt yourself running. Of course, that is unlikely in a 5.6. I could see an upside to being outside, at least here in Oklahoma. In LA, you've got tall buildings and structures that could fall on top of you. Here in Oklahoma, most people have plenty of open space to go sit down and wait for the shaking to stop.
Sorry for the Alarm (Score:2)
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Risks versus California maybe not that much less? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a good reminder that earthquakes do eventually occur in many places that we like to think of as earthquake-proof, even if they're rare.
Having recently moved to the Chicago area from California, I find myself having to learn to live with the vague feeling of unease that's caused by the fact that the most popular building style here seems to be "big pile of bricks".
If an earthquake of substantial size ever does hit you in an area where they are rare enough that there's no pressure to make building codes stronger, then chances are your odds of dying will be a lot greater than if you lived in California where the new buildings are all very safe and the old buildings have at least been tested a few times.
So while living in the mid-west etc. greatly reduces your chance of experiencing a large earthquake, the reduction in risk for actually dying in an earthquake is probably not as large as people like to think.
G.
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You build to suit the prevailing conditions. Here on the west coast of Scotland, we don't build to withstand earthquakes but we do build to withstand regular 140mph winds.
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This is totally true. California building codes would be totally useless in Chicago, where it is a lot more important that a building be able to withstand a raging blizzard at 30 below than it is an earthquake.
Buildings in California that are fully up to code, would likely not last a single winter in the north. For one thing the way you do footings for an earthquake zone is totally different than how you do them in a frost-prone zone, and if you are trying to plan for both then things get complicated.
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Especially if people are expending a lot of fracking [google.com] time in Oklahoma...
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And may I add to that "built on top of a swamp".
living in the mid-west etc. greatly reduces (Score:2)
Look up "New Madrid Fault"...
Stampede? (Score:3)
Are there sure it wasn't a stampede? Because I was under the assumption that only two things come from Oklahoma, and earthquakes aren't one of them.
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"... and I've got horns."
OK, I'm not really from OK.
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You're thinking of Texas.
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You're thinking of Texas.
Reminds me of an old joke. Someone from the east coast is bound for Texas and stops for directions. They are given as follows:
"Go west till you smell cow shit. That's Oklahoma. Then go south till you're standing in it. That's Texas."
it woke me up (Score:2)
i knew it could not be tanks rolling through the neighborhood because the sound was missing the metallic squeak that tanks have
Fracking Storage (Score:3)
Arkansas isn't waiting to find out. http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/07/27/arkansas-commission-votes-to-ban-wells/ [foxnews.com]
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You mean like this? [google.com] The location is from the USGS Earthquake Page [usgs.gov] showing the locations of the recent Oklahoma earthquakes. Is that a gas well right next to the quake location (that "bright square pad")? And could those be fault lines in the background?
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You mean like this? [google.com] The location is from the USGS Earthquake Page [usgs.gov] showing the locations of the recent Oklahoma earthquakes. Is that a gas well right next to the quake location (that "bright square pad")? And could those be fault lines in the background?
It's hard to tell exactly what's on it, but I see a pad with what looks to be four tanks just north of there. It looks like it has a few horizontal and vertical separators too. Major hydrofracturing activity in Oklahoma is centered around other places though.. McAlester, El Reno and Elk City.
The kinds of wells that are known to be quake-causing, according to my geophysicist friend, are water disposal wells. These will have lots of tanks, often 10-20 tanks, for storage buffering. It will also conspicuo
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Within the last 5 hours there have been 7 quakes of 3.0 or greater.
Typical for aftershocks of a large earthquake.
Hello? Did someone order a fresh batch of science? (Score:5, Interesting)
Come now, nerds. All this talk and no science. How about something from the Oklahoma Geological Survey? They set out to disprove an earlier quake this year was the result of fracking. Instead, they found correlation:
http://www.eenews.net/assets/2011/11/02/document_pm_01.pdf [eenews.net]
Here is some commentary on the report:
http://www.eenews.net/public/eenewspm/2011/11/02/1 [eenews.net]
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Some experimental geothermal projects in Switzerland & Australia were aborted because people panicked about the possible relationship to small quakes in the area of the hydraulic fracturing.
Really a pity, IMO, a few smallish (Mw 4) quakes are a low price to pay for virtually unlimited and potentially very clean energy.
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Come now, nerds. All this talk and no science. How about something from the Oklahoma Geological Survey? They set out to disprove an earlier quake this year was the result of fracking. Instead, they found correlation: http://www.eenews.net/assets/2011/11/02/document_pm_01.pdf [eenews.net]
Here is some commentary on the report: http://www.eenews.net/public/eenewspm/2011/11/02/1 [eenews.net]
I'm glad you posted this.. but did you read it?
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Correct, BUT this correlation has a plausible causation, and therefore should be studied.
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True. The earthquakes probably caused the fracking, not the other way around.
Fracking earthquakes! (Score:2)
I have a sinking feeling there's more where that came from....
All worked up over a 5.6? (Score:2)
I know the midwestern US is geologically stable - but a) earthquakes do happen there on occasion; and b) a 5.6 is amateur hour.
Those of us on the west coast see a 5.6 quake as an oatmeal stirrer, at best. And ask the residents of Japan and Chile about magnitude 5.6 quakes - their response is probably analogous to asking a Denver resident about the Appalachian "mountains".
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Because 5.6 is the largest ever recorded in the state, perhaps? Just because it's normal or boring to someone in another part of the world doesn't discount this as news. If 1/3 of the population of Europe were on the brink of starvation, would it be normal and un-newsworthy simply because there are countries in Africa where that (or worse) is normal?
Using your logic, it can be argued that nothing is newsworthy here, simply because in all probability, everything interesting has already happened on a larger
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Uh, how about a quake felt as far away as Texas, which doesn't have noticable earthquakes. The first time I've ever felt an earthquake was during this event last night, here in North Texas.
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Yes, they are worked up about it. I wasn't there, but i would be willing to bet that THAT kind of earthquake felt substantially stronger (and was felt in a much wider area) than a similar energy release in the bay area.
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Those of us on the west coast see a 5.6 quake as an oatmeal stirrer, at best.
I would say that's being generous. This one might have stirred your coffee. Maybe.
The spring and summer thunderstorms and tornadoes we get every year shake the house more than this quake did.
I live in Stillwater, OK, and was playing Fallout 3 when it occurred. I was at the point in the game where you accompany Liberty Prime on a mission to wipe out the Enclave at the Jefferson Memorial. (a lot of explosions in game)
My first thought was, "Oh, I need to turn the sound down!", and paused the game.
The rumbling
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My first thought was, "Oh, I need to turn the sound down!", and paused the game. ...
I think experiencing a magnitude 7.x-8+ quake would cause me to soil my shorts, while this 5.6 had me blaming my sub-woofer and all the mini-nukes exploding in the game. :-)
Love it!
I've been in a few noticeable earthquakes over the past 20 years (in western Washington state). The most recent one - the 2001 Nisqually quake (mag. 6.8) - kept the house oscillating back and forth for what seemed like several minutes (but was only about 45 seconds, apparently). It was very rhythmic and weird - my daughter and I were in a doorway, and she was so scared she refused to open her eyes (not sure how that helped though). I have to admit I wondered if the house was going to shake apart.
One
Info From USGS (Score:2)
I'm in Norman, OK, and there was definitely some pretty good shaking here, although not enough to cause any real damage (it knocked a stack of dvd cases off of my dresser... not sure if that counts as "damage"). In the small towns closer to the epicenter there was certainly some damage, however. At least one highway was buckled in a spot, and there were apparently multiple instan
Not Fracking, Wilzetta fault/Seminole Uplift (Score:2)
http://www.okgeosurvey1.gov/pages/home.php [okgeosurvey1.gov]
That area of Oklahoma is not a big natural gas location or oil producing area that I know of. The quake was approximately 30 miles from Cushing, Oklahoma. The "Pipeline Crossroads of the world", a major hub in pipelines that connect the gulf coast to the interior. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cushing,_Oklahoma [wikipedia.org] No reported damage that I know of there.
It was extremely amazing for someone who's never felt an earthquake like that. A slow rumbling to start, felt lik
It shook the shit out of my house (Score:3)
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Oh, please. This 5.6 quake is the seventh 4+ earthquake in Oklahoma since 1995 (eighth if you include the 4.7 foreshock). As much as I would love to see this linked to fracking (seriously, don't get me started on the energy industry), let's not jump to conclusions.
See this link [usgs.gov] for the list.
And did you notice that, of those 8 earthquakes, 4 of them have been since 2010? According to this [earthandindustry.com] there are 181 fracking facilities in the county where these earthquakes have been occurring. Maybe it's not caused by fracking, but I find it hard to believe that 181 fracking sites devoted to breaking up the earth's crust within a single county has no effect on seismic activity.
Its Not just the Magnatude, its the depth. (Score:2)
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To be fair, it does use the possessive "its" to specify that it's Oklahoma's strongest earthquake, but still probably not especially newsworthy on a tech site.
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But at least we know the industry apologists are on faster.
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They should be. They get paid to do it.
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In fact I'm surprised no one has blamed this quake on it yet.
Because the real culprit is right in front of our tentacles [wikimedia.org].
Wriggle in fear, miserable humanoids!
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What I would like to find out is ... did this type of shaking provide a benefit to many of the older dried wells ( or low production wells ), I'm thinking that the shaking could have caused compression on the old drained wells.
Also, an earthquake of this magnitude might be the cause of the years of draining oil. I've always understood that there are minor quakes in drilling/pumping fields, but maybe a slightly larger one ( 2.0 to 3.0 is what I know as common ) of 5.0 might be something that we need to look
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Given the extremely high correlation between fracking and earthquakes, are you suggesting the mechanism runs the other way, and future earthquakes cause fracking in the past?
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Well, there's fracking. This was a shallow quake and all.
Also, if you are far enough away, eastern Oklahoma and the New Madrid fault line look very close to each other. And stories about the beginnings of the Mississippi Rift Valley are appropriate to the average developmental age of slashdot's readers and their interest in weird fictions.
So the story sort of fits here. About as well as many of slashdot's other stories.
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Oops, that's my bad. Please mod accordingly.
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Now you have ruined my opportunity to downplay the quake by bragging about my experience of the Maule quake (a measly Mw 8.8). Satisfied?
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Because Fracking?
We have angered the Gods! (runs)
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http://www.springerlink.com/content/u315626k2071q0j0/ [springerlink.com]
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If the evil homosexuals having immoral fun caused the earthquake, then all I can say to that is that whatever they were doing must have been done in perfect synchronization.
At least we can all be glad there are no homosexuals on Slashdot.
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Strongest ever in Oklahoma. Headline says "its strongest-ever recorded quake." But the summary is wrong where it says early Sunday morning — it was about 10 p.m. I am in Wichita, Kansas (roughly 160 miles away from the epicenter) and felt the quake quite noticeably. It was like a train went past my house without making any noise. It rattled the walls.
Yup, time is totally wrong (Score:2)
It was Saturday evening. Don't know how Sunday got mixed into this unless they were looking at UTC or something.
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Yeah, I'm sure that's what it was: it was early Sunday morning in England.
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Headline: strongest-ever quake causes minimal damages and hurts no one.
Why is this on /. ?
Dunno, just to see if someone tries to blame global warming? Maybe on Fark... ^_^
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There's a pretty good chance it was related to global warming, though not caused by it.
Look up how fracking causes earthquakes, and how much fracking is going on in OK.
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fracking has nothing to do with global warming, melting ice caps, "climate change", or anything else. It something people do to extract natural gas, and is independent of the amount of methane, CO2, or water vapor in the atmosphere.
Similarly, earthquakes also have absolutely nothing to do with AGW, melting ice caps, "climate change" or anything else. They are a function of built-up tension between neighboring tectonic plates.
Finally, when you consider the amount of energy that it takes to shift that much
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Just to clarify, as Im sure people will link to this study or that:
I would hazard (and it appears to be the case based on the first report I looked at) that noone has proof of an earthquake "caused" by fracking, as much as one where an already stressed fault line was induced to give way due to fracking.
Its sort of like saying a doctor "caused" the baby to come about because they induced labor early: the baby was coming one way or another, the doctor just sped its delivery. You can argue whether fracking s
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You got it right in your followup, the best theory suggests that fracking is triggering earthquakes early. Earthquakes that otherwise might well not have happened within the lifespan of human civilization. Hence, from our point of view, 'causing' them.
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Sorry for the double follow-up, hit submit too early.
And fracking is related to global warming because natural gas burning is yet another co2 producer. So unless you're one of those people convinced the evidence on co2 as a greenhouse gas is false, it's certainly related to global warming. Or are you trying to make the argument that the production of natural gas is unrelated to its consumption?
http://www.naturalgas.org/environment/naturalgas.asp#greenhouse [naturalgas.org]
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It's an earthquake. Geology nerds like that kind of stuff.
I'm sure the editors are sorry that you wasted your valuable time reading an article written for a different kind of nerd.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Interesting)
Because we don't get earthquakes in this part of the world. Ever. There was an earthquake just SE of San Antonio, Texas - the second ever recorded, and about 5 miles from an active fracking operation. Fracking is a really screwy operation that a lot of countries have banned because it causes a lot of problems and earthquakes.
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My dad worked in the industry for years and years through KS, OK and TX. He went on many many frack jobs that, in my memory, go back to at least the mid '70's. Please do not link an earthquake today to an active frack job just next door. Or in the case of the San Antonio "second ever recorded" to the active project. I know it is easy to link the two in your mind but these jobs have been happening for decades without an increase of seismic activity so just realize sometimes it can just be circumstantial
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Not that I necessarily believe these quakes are the result of fracking (WAY too small a data set), but did it ever occur to you that the seismic changes caused by fracking could indeed take decades before they become present?
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I don't know what the problem is officer. I've stabbed lots of people with a pin before and it never caused any problems.
Sure, I stabbed this one guy 150,000 times, but all I did was poke him with a pin!
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Fracking is a really screwy operation that a lot of countries have banned because it causes a lot of problems and earthquakes.
Please compare the relative depths of fracking operations and the faults upon which earthquakes occur.
And I'd be pretty surprised if the New Madrid quake didn't rattle Oklahoma since it rang church bells in Boston.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Informative)
Wrong. OK has a history of M5+ quakes about avery 60 years. 1887, 1952 and now 2011.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Informative)
Not according to the USGS seismic hazard maps. Unlike most other states, Oklahoma even has a separate map dedicated to that state. See:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/hazards/products/conterminous/2008/maps/
There are many states that are prone to periodic earthquakes. This includes many states that most people just assume do not have earthquakes because they are infrequent. I would be hesitant to assume attribution to a fracking that which can be adequately explained by previously known geological science.
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You're the only person to say "you're wrong" and sign your name to it. Yes, they have occurred before. Occasionally there are earthquakes in the Ozark Mountains far to the east, but as a resident of the region, I think can safely say that if you ask anyone in Texas if we have earthquakes here, short of a seismologist (or slashdot reader with too much time on his hands ;) ), nobody would answer "yes". There is a difference between a 100% seismically dead, and "we have a 4.0 earthquake every 10 years". Few pe
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That makes me wonder, what is the most geologically dead/stable area on Earth? Is there such a thing as a place that experiences no earthquakes?
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Because we don't get earthquakes in this part of the world. Ever.
New Madrid [wikipedia.org] would like to disagree with you.
Sure, it's a couple hundred miles away but, due to the geology of the midwest, you WILL feel it the next time it goes off. (H*ll, the last it went off, it rang church bells in Boston, and knocked over chimneys in Maine.)
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^^^
Parent post above this is a lie. That is all.
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Because it was Oklahoma? If it was Japan, Sumatra or Chile it wouldn't be news, but even a small quake like this is a strange occurrence in the center-south of North America.
IMO more interesting than yet another smartphone non-story, anyways.
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I'd advise Israeli and Californians to intensify training people how to survive major quakes, just in case.
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Because: (Score:2)
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Are you kidding? Your house is clearly under some sort of magic spell that prevents it from being destroyed!!
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i heard tsunamis are da bomb !
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I'd wait until after the locusts and frogs.
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You should probably stay where you are. What else could possibly go wrong?
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I've seen people who've been in earthquakes before panic in a 5.0, and run out into the streets... from the safety of a high rise building which is built with dampeners in the basement and is intended to withstand an 8.5 according to code (there's a fault line that runs directly down the street behind the building I work in, hence the code requiring that).... would have been funny if one of 'em got hit by a falling roofing tile from the building next door, since that high rise was the safest place you could
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I was in the VA quake in a high-rise office building in Falls Church, and believe me, if anyone put any dampers in the basement of that building, they hid them pretty darn well. I would bet a lot of money that the VA codes don't mention earthquakes, or if they do, most buildings get a waiver of some kind. Queue the Californians to gloat about how gentle the VA quake was compared to theirs.
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"An earthquake where no nuclear plants were damaged?"
None DETECTABLY damaged, SO FAR! (huddles in fear)
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It's interesting to me how easy it is to start with the "us and them" attitudes when you never leave one given region.
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Earth quakes, tornados, floods, etc. It's just God smiting the them for mean spirited politics and wacko religious views. Not that God hates those people mind you. He just doesn't approve of their "lifestyle".
Either that or he is bored? ;)
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It's quite unlikely we will ever know if he was one way or the other, the bible(s) where written long after he passed away; it is much more likely it's what the writer wanted to be portraied.
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You could start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexuality_of_Jesus [wikipedia.org]
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last supper: "this is my *penis* , drink ye all of it"
to doubting Thomas: "take your finger, and thrust it into the *hole* in my *ass*"
to the multitudes: "blessed are the meek, for they shall *be the twink at the
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That might be interesting, if OK didn't have a history of M5+ quakes about every 60 years, 1887, 1952, and now 2011. I'm not saying fracking isn't possibly related, there is evidence from other areas that fracking may induce some seismic activity, but this one is more likely just periodic movement.
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Trouble comprehending the topic of your own post?
Strongest ever recorded in Oklahoma.
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Not in the most recent hundred years.
I'm not a Californian. Maybe you guys deal with this kind of thing weekly,
No, they are just talking out their ass. California experiences only on average 2 a year of 5.0 or higher. In the last 48 hours, we nearly hit their average.
Also, note that a 5.6 in Oklahoma is certainly not going to cause as much damage as one in California. There are just so many structures and people that in California, a 5.6 wo