![]() ![]() It also means that we won’t ever hear one in Doha. The temperature required to trigger a frost quake is below -20C (-4F), which explains why they generally happen during the night. This winter over 350 people registered a frost quake. ![]() One lady from Toronto even made a customised map on Google Maps, encouraging people to report any frost quakes that they’d heard. ![]() It’s now easier for people to report hearing frost quakes, without other people thinking they were just hearing things. This has in part been due to the extreme cold weather that has plagued much of North America this winter, but it’s also due to the emergence of social media. More people have reported frost quakes this year than almost any other year. In 2003, an ice quake left a 70-foot wide crack in the concrete cellar floor of a home in Phillips, Maine. They are unlikely to swallow your house or cause bridges to collapse, but every now and then, they can cause some minor damage. This is because they happen very close to the surface, whereas an earthquake could be many kilometres below the ground the closer you are to the actual movement of the earth, the more you will feel movement.Īs they are weak, generally these frost quakes don’t cause much damage. However, frost quakes can still generate a loud noise and significant shaking in a specific location. Their lack of power also explains why they are so localised it’s unlikely that someone half a kilometer away will feel shaking if you do. The large booming sound is the rock splitting apart as the ice expands.įrost quakes are so weak that Earthquake Canada’s instruments can’t pick them up. The same process happens when water within the ground freezes it will expand and become too big for its confines. Ice has a larger volume than water if you put a bottle of water into the freezer, it will expand and burst out of its bottle. This moisture could either be from rain or it could be ground water, the water that is naturally found underground in the cracks and spaces in soil, sand and rock. They are generated when moisture within the ground freezes. The forces required to generate an earthquake are immense.įrost quakes are far less powerful. Instead the forces build up until there is a sudden jolt. The edges of the crust are jagged rock, so they don’t slide smoothly. These aren’t like the powerful earthquakes that we normally hear about, but they can certainly be scary.Įarthquakes are triggered when pieces of the earth’s crust suddenly slip past each other. These mystifying sounds were caused by frost quakes, which are also known as ice quakes or cryoseisms. One man even said he thought his roof had collapsed. Other people started to look around their homes, convinced that something must have broken or fallen. ![]() The noises petrified some people, who thought that there must be an intruder. People in Canada are used to hearing cracks and pops in the winter as the cold weather causes pipes and structures to contract, but these noises were much louder and deeper. Some claimed they sounded like bowling balls being knocked together, other likened them to gun shots or trees snapping. Suddenly, instead of just a few people in a rural location hearing the thunderous noises, hundreds of residents started to report the noises. Huge, ominous booms were heard in the dead of night in a number of US states and Canada, but the attention was really drawn to them when a number of these deep cracking noises were heard in Toronto. In fact the weather in the northern hemisphere was so cold this winter that it even triggered a number of rare events known as frost quakes. For some parts of the northern hemisphere, the change to spring was a huge relief Toronto had its coldest winter for 20 years and much of the USA also had a number of exceptionally cold spells. If we want to be precise, this year it happened on 20 March at 7:57pm in Doha. The exact moment that the sun crosses the equator varies slightly each year. The word equinox comes from the Latin meaning ‘equal night’, and this is the point at which day and night are nearly the same length, no matter where in the world you are. Thursday, March 20, was the date of the spring equinox, the day that the sun crossed the equator, on its journey northwards.įrom this date onwards, the days will continue to get longer and the weather will get warmer. It has certainly warmed up in Doha now, and it’s also warming up in the rest of the northern hemisphere. This is because they happen very close to the surface, whereas an earthquake could be many kilometres below the ground. BIG BANG: Frost quakes can generate a loud noise and significant shaking in a specific location. ![]()
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