Wake up!

I'm no geologist, but I think that earthquakes are happening all the time, all around the world.  It so happens that here in Chile we're at an especially active seismic area (we are near the boundary of the Nazca and South American tectonic plates), although many of the rumbles you can't feel.  Last night marked the first quake that woke me up, and lasted long enough for several anxious thoughts to go through my head.  It went something like:

"Am I awake, or dreaming?"

"I'm awake. If this lasts any longer, should I put on my shoes and head down stairs? Remember you're wearing your pajamas, how embarrassing."

"Still happening, should I crawl on the floor like the tornado drills we did in elementary school?  I hear Chileans outside, do they know something I don't? At what point do I take action?"

"Ok, things are still again. What time is it?"

"4:30 am, make a note to check on this in the morning."

Well, it was certainly not the magnitude of the big earthquake of February 2010 (magnitude 8.8), or the biggest earthquake recorded which happened in Chile in 1960 (magnitude 9.5), but for this earthquake novice (read: wimp), it was somewhat notable.  I did look it up this morning, to confirm my dreaming vs. awake state, and although the time is one hour off (which I think is due to the confused daylight savings time here), I think I found the details (below).  An online news source called this an "intense tremor" ("un intenso temblor").  It seems that the term "earthquake" ("terremoto") in Chile is reserved for something quite large, but at least this morning's event was notable enough to be covered by the news.

I won't say this is the only or the biggest earthquake I have experienced (because I think some of the aftershocks in March 2010 were larger), and I won't think that something more substantial isn't coming.  But, in some ways this morning's tremor was notable to my experience here, because it reminds me of the very real earthquake situation in Chile.

Magnitude	5.1
Date-Time	Saturday, March 24, 2012 at 07:28:33 UTC Saturday, March 24, 2012 at 03:28:33 AM at epicenter Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones
Location	33.083°S, 70.865°W
Depth	66.7 km (41.4 miles)
Region	REGION METROPOLITANA, CHILE
Distances	37 km (22 miles) SW of Los Andes, Valparaiso, Chile 45 km (27 miles) NNW of SANTIAGO, Region Metropolitana, Chile 68 km (42 miles) E of Valparaiso, Valparaiso, Chile 90 km (55 miles) NE of San Antonio, Valparaiso, Chile
Location Uncertainty	horizontal +/- 17.8 km (11.1 miles); depth +/- 7.9 km (4.9 miles)
Parameters	NST=180, Nph=196, Dmin=18.9 km, Rmss=0.95 sec, Gp= 58°, M-type=body wave magnitude (Mb), Version=9