by Zoë Pollock

How was the quake felt from the Carolinas all the way to Canada? Alexis chalks it up to the fact that "East Coast crust isn't the same as West Coast crust":

Most strong quakes occur deeper in the earth's crust. The depth of a quake has a direct relationship with how intense humans at the surface perceive its shaking to be, although that depends on a lot of other things, too. Still, relative to a deeper quake, this 5.9 tremor was felt more strongly than you'd expect. ... That's probably because East Coast crust is "older and colder," which makes it a more efficient transmitter of seismic energy.

Like Patrick, I also grew up in California, but my memories are of the LA quake in 1994.