Well, Karen and I woke up to a really large earthquake this morning lasting from 35-45 seconds. From the feel of past earthquakes, I would have guessed that it was in the mid 6. magnitude by the time it got to us.  My dad called and said that CNN was reporting it as a 7.9 magnitude, and looking at my little tremor skimmer widget that grabs USGS data from the web, it says 7.9 as well!  I am anxious to see what the guys here at geology are reporting, and mapping the location.  It makes you wonder if it was associated with the Hunga Volcano, I mean it makes sense, but Tonga is on a convergent plate boundary in the ring of fire so….

I’ll have updates as soon as I can talk with the Geology folks

Here is the msnbc.com article: here

Update:  Here is the USGS information from their website: here

They are saying it was “210 km (130 miles) SSE of NUKU’ALOFA, Tonga” and about 10km deep which is rather shallow.  Friday, March 20, 2009 at 06:17:37 AM at epicenter