To match the energy of a 5.8 earthquake, you would --imagine the amount of destruction that amount of TNT could do in a confined space.

Although quakes are very common overall, they are often too small to notice. The shaking from an earthquake is caused from vibrations called seismic waves; these waves are capable of travelling either across the surface and through the Earth's mantle and core--this is why sometimes earthquakes that happen on one side of the Earth can be picked up by seismographs on the other side of the world.

We usually think of faults as being around the edge of tectonic plates--after all, the vast majority of earthquakes occur at these plate boundaries--,but as Tuesday's quake shows, earthquakes can occur in the middle of a tectonic plate. gives some more detail on why these interplate quakes occur, but the basic idea is that they may be caused by ancient earthquake faults that spring back to life.

So, with seismic waves in mind, how does this effect Virginia's moderate earthquake travelling so far?