It was dark and cold, as if hell were freezing over.

Then came the booming sounds that shook the earth and sent area residents running to their windows.

The cracking sound, like an explosion, was heard about 6 p.m. Jan. 7 around Waupun, Fairwater, Brandon, Markesan, Oakfield and Campbellsport.

Dennis Olsen of Waupun thought perhaps his garage had blown up as he peered out into the winter night.

Nope. Everything was quiet.

Then he went to the basement to see if any of his walls had split open.

"Things looked fine. Strange, because it was so loud," he said.

But the next morning, Olsen's grandson was coming up the gravel driveway to visit and came upon a strange sight.

"First time I've ever seen something like this. It was a giant crack, maybe an inch wide and a good eight to 10 inches deep when I stuck a ruler down," Olsen said.

An earthquake of preliminary magnitude 4.4 struck southern California early today, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

The earthquake's epicenter was 3 miles (5 km) north of Fontana in San Bernardino County. It originated 3.2 miles (5.2 km) deep and struck at 1:35 a.m. local time (9:35 UTC).

Residents reported light to moderate shaking in the area, as far away as Long Beach and Los Angeles, according to the USGS, but there were no immediate reports of damage.

Earthquakes of this size tend to be felt by people in the area but typically do not cause significant damage, other than possibly broken windows and falling dishes or the toppling of unstable objects. But the damage caused by any single event depends on the quake's depth, proximity to populated areas, building standards in the region, as well as the type of earthquake. The USGS frequently updates the magnitude of an event after more data is analyzed.

An earthquake's magnitude is a measure of the energy released at the source. It is just one predictor of the shaking that may ensue, which is affected by local and regional geology. Scientists know in a general sense what causes earthquakes but are unable to predict specific quakes.

Four years ago Sunday, a 7.0-magnitude earthquake hit Haiti, destroying its capital of Port-au-Prince and killing more than 200,000 people. Today, much of Port-au-Prince looks like it did before the quake. Most of the tent camps in the city itself are gone, and streets are loaded with overcrowded buses and women selling vegetables.

Most of those whose lives were upended by the quake are back in some kind of home. Most of the rubble has been cleared from the streets. The severely damaged presidential palace has finally been razed. And the government is rebuilding its ministries downtown.

But for nearly 150,000 people, life hasn't moved on. They still live in the temporary plastic and plywood structures erected after the disaster.

A strong quake of magnitude 6.5 struck north off Puerto Rico on Monday and could trigger a local tsunami, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said.

It said the quake, initially reported as a magnitude 6.4, was very shallow, at a depth of 17.7 miles below the seabed. It struck at 12:01 a.m. (0401 GMT), 35 miles north of the town of Hatillo.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said the quake could trigger a local tsunami.

"There is the small possibility of a local tsunami that could affect coasts located usually no more than a hundred kilometers (63 miles) from the earthquake epicenter," the tsunami center said in its advisory.

Event Time
2014-01-13 04:01:04 UTC
2014-01-13 00:01:04 UTC-04:00 at epicenter

Location
19.001°N 66.848°W depth=28.0km (17.4mi)

Nearby Cities
57km (35mi) N of Hatillo, Puerto Rico
58km (36mi) NNE of Isabela, Puerto Rico
60km (37mi) NNW of Arecibo, Puerto Rico
69km (43mi) NNW of Barceloneta, Puerto Rico
98km (61mi) NW of San Juan, Puerto Rico

Technical Details

A 5.1-magnitude earthquake struck in the Straits of Florida off Cuba on Thursday, startling office workers in medium-rise buildings set swaying in Havana. There was no word of any damage or injuries.

The temblor occurred just before 4 p.m. about 106 miles (172 kilometers) east of Havana, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The closest city to the epicenter was Corralillo, 17 miles (28 kilometers) to the southwest.

In Old Havana, the quake was felt clearly by workers in two 6-floor buildings that were temporarily evacuated. It appeared to last around 30 seconds.

Sandor Polo, a 31-year-old waiter, said he was delivering food to a third-floor office when boxes suddenly began to move and workers started yelling.

"I got dizzy," Polo said, adding that he's never felt anything like it in his life.

"Everything was moving," said Nuria Oquendo, a 44-year-old office assistant who was on the sixth floor of a neighboring building when it began to move back and forth. "You could really feel it, very clear, very defined."

Like Polo, she had never been in an earthquake before. She called the experience unsettling, but said she wasn't scared.

"Not frightened, but a sensation that something strange is going on," Oquendo said.

The USGS initially reported a magnitude of 5.0, and later upgraded it to 5.1. The quake struck at a depth of six miles (10 kilometers).

The U.S. National Weather Service said there was no tsunami danger.

Locally, the NWS reported that the quake had been felt in the Davis Islands area. Others reported feeling it in the Carillon area.

Cuba is not as known for seismic activity as other parts of Latin America, especially countries along the Pacific Rim of Fire.

But a number of significant quakes have hit the island over the years, including one in 1932 that killed eight people and damaged 80 percent of the buildings in the eastern city of Santiago, according to U.S. National Geophysical Data Center records.

Source: AP

Record heatwaves and wildfires, widespread and severe flooding, massive sinkholes swallowing buildings and people, mass animal deaths, an asteroid exploding over Russia, thousands more fireballs lighting up the sky throughout the year, record-breaking blizzards snowfall, the coldest northern spring in 100 years, massive landslides, 'rare' tornadoes occurring in places they shouldn't, the widest tornado ever observed, more volcanic eruptions, more major earthquakes forming new islands, the strongest tropical storm in recorded history, successive hurricanes in Europe, the coldest temperature ever recorded, snow in Cairo... these are signs of climate change, aka Earth Changes.

Welcome to the new normal.

A new catalogue of earthquake lights - mysterious glows sometimes reported before or during seismic shaking - finds that they happen most often in geological rift environments, where the ground is pulling apart. The work is the latest to tackle the enigmatic lights, which have been described by eyewitnesses for centuries but are yet to be fully explained by scientists^{1, 2, 3}.

The study, published in the January/February issue of Seismological Research Letters⁴, pulls together several strands of research to propose a mechanism by which earthquake lights form. The authors suggest that, during an earthquake, the stress of rocks grinding against each other generates electric charges, which travel upwards along the nearly vertical geological faults that are common in rift zones. When the charges reach Earth's surface and interact with the atmosphere, they create a glow.

"Earthquake lights are a real phenomenon - they're not UFOs," says lead author Robert Thériault, a geologist at Quebec's Ministry of Natural Resources in Quebec City, Canada. "They can be scientifically explained."

Event Time
2014-01-01 16:03:30 UTC
2014-01-02 03:03:30 UTC+11:00 at epicenter

Location
13.873°S 167.202°E depth=196.2km (121.9mi)

Nearby Cities
37km (23mi) W of Sola, Vanuatu
183km (114mi) N of Luganville, Vanuatu
443km (275mi) NNW of Port-Vila, Vanuatu
779km (484mi) N of We, New Caledonia
918km (570mi) N of Paita, New Caledonia

Technical Details

An unusually large number of high-profile earthquakes sprung up across the globe over the weekend, causing extensive damage to a roadway in Mexico and leaving residents shaken in southern Europe, Egypt and the U.S.

Saturday, an earthquake near the Mexico - U.S. border collapsed chunks of this 300-yard stretch of highway. (Via CNN)

"The road is about 60 miles south of Tijuana. It passes over geological fault. The earthquake ranged in magnitude from 1.3 to 4.3." (Via WABC)

There were surprisingly no injuries, but one truck driver hauling 36 tons of cement had to wait hours before being pulled to safety. (Via NBC)

Also Saturday, a 5.8 magnitude earthquake reportedly hit the Mediterranean Sea, shaking nearby Turkey, Cyprus and Egypt. (Via Famagusta Gazette)

That was followed by a 4.9 magnitude earthquake nearly 1,500 miles away around Naples, Italy early Sunday morning. Residents reportedly slept in their cars in fear of aftershocks that might damage buildings. (Via U.S. Geological Survey)

In the U.S., Oklahoma dealt with several earthquakes over the last week with more striking over the weekend. Most were reported as minor between 2.0 magnitude and 4.9., but the Midwestern state has rarely dealt with earthquakes, until recent years. (Via KOTV) (Via Al Jazeera)