Case Study: The Big One
1882-11-07 | CGS Admin
It has been 140 years since “The Big One”: Colorado’s largest historic earthquake: November 7, 1882 – Magnitude 6.6.
On Tuesday, November 7, 1882 at about 6:30 p.m. local Denver time, a moderately strong earthquake shook much of Colorado and parts of southern Wyoming and northeastern Utah. The following quote from the Rocky Mountain News gives an indication of the shaking in Denver, 60 miles (100 km) from the approximate epicenter.
A general stampede was caused among the employees of The News office, especially in the editorial rooms. The editors and reporters were seated engaged at work when the floors of the editorial rooms began to tremble violently. … for a short time it appeared as if the building was about to tumble in.
— Rocky Mountain News, November 8, 1882
The shaking was so great in Denver that it broke the electrical generators loose from their mounts and knocked out power. The earthquake was apparently felt as far east as Salina, Kansas and perhaps even in Plattsmouth, Nebraska (Rockwood, 1883; Oaks and Kirkham, 1986); and as far west as Salt Lake City.
The earthquake Tuesday evening not only created a sensation but did some damage. It was observed by a few pedestrians who were not particularly interested in the election returns that the electric lights were suddenly extinguished at half past 6. Among the observers was Superintendent Runkle. He went immediately to the electric light building at the foot of Twenty-first street and found that an accident had occurred to the machinery. From the driving pulley of engine there is a connection of shafting five inches in diameter and divided into sections of 12 feet. These sections are connected by large iron bolt screws nearly an inch in diameter. At the instant of the earthquake shock one of those bolts was snapped in twain and the other bent out of shape. The whole machinery was thrown out of gear, and it became necessary to stop the machinery at once. Mr. Runkle is of the opinion that the upheaval which caused the earthquake ran east and west and centered about his establishment and the residency of Mr. Birke Cornforth. It was ascertained yesterday that the shock was so severe in the northern portion of the city that many families ran from their houses.
— The Denver Tribune, November 8, 1882
An aftershock followed on the morning of November 8 and was felt in Denver, Boulder, Greeley, Laramie, and near Meeker. The main event was the largest earthquake to occur in the Colorado region during the historical period (1867-present) and has been the object of considerable study by numerous researchers. Heck (1928) reported the felt area—that is, the total area where credible reports of ‘felt’ earthquake movement and its direct effects were made—as 11,000 mi2 (28,000 km2). Hadsell (1968), as part of the investigation of the earthquakes at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, conducted the first extensive evaluation of this event. Hadsell concluded the earthquake may have been centered north of Denver and east of Boulder, had maximum intensity of VII, and was ML (local magnitude scale) 5.0 ± 0.6 based on the maximum observed intensity or ML 6.7 ± 0.6 based on its circular felt area of just under 460,000 mi2 (1,200,000 km2).
On Tuesday night, about seven o’clock, our people were frightened by the shock of an earthquake, those who were in their houses experienced the shock the most, the buildings moved and quaked as if they were being torn down, and things that were hanging up any where, were put in motion at a lively rate.
— Grand Junction News, November 11, 1882
Dames and Moore (1981) studied this event as part of their seismic hazard evaluation for the Rocky Flats Plant. A summary of their investigation into the 1882 earthquake was described by McGuire et al (1982). They collected additional felt reports and reassessed others, particularly the account of landsliding and severe ground shaking in the Douglas Pass area that was discounted by Hadsell (1968). Dames and Moore (1981) discredited the felt report from Salina, Kansas because the event was not reported in Salina’s newspaper. They placed the earthquake epicenter in northwestern Colorado and suggested that the Dudley Gulch graben in the Piceance Creek Basin was a possible causative structure.
A radiocarbon date on charcoal—collected by Kirkham, Junge, and Rogers in late 1981**—from unfaulted deposits that cover the fault and detailed studies of the Dudley Gulch graben by Eckert (1982) and Clift and Billington (1986) have since demonstrated that no surface rupture has occurred on the Dudley Gulch graben for over one thousand years. Dames and Moore (1981) estimated the felt area at 200,000 mi2 (500,000 km2), assigned a maximum intensity of VIII to the event, and suggested the earthquake had a magnitude of around ML 6.5. A re-evaluation of existing felt reports, combined with newly discovered felt reports and confirmation of the felt report in Salina, Kansas by Oaks and Kirkham (1986), led Kirkham and Rogers (1986) to produce this isoseismal map.
** Our retired colleague Bob Kirkham recently updated us with this exciting 1981 moment in the field: “Soon after the Dames & Moore 1981 report became available Pat Rogers, Rahe Junge, and I were looking for datable material in unfaulted sediment that overlies the Dudley Gulch fault. Each of us were walking in and examining different arroyos when I discovered a tiny piece of the bone protruding from an arroyo wall. I yelled to Pat and Rahe, asking them to come look at the piece of bone to assess whether it might be datable. We decided it was, so we started to dig it out. After much digging, it turned out to be the nose of an intact bison skull that was lying in an upside-down position. As we were digging, we also uncovered a cobble-lined depression filled with charcoal at the same stratigraphic level as the bison skull. It clearly was a firepit. The edge of the buried firepit was about 2 or 3 feet horizontally from the skull. The charcoal was dated, but not the skull. We speculated that the bison, or part of it, was cooked in the firepit! The skull still hangs on my office wall.”
— Bob Kirkham, personal communication, 2022
Kirkham and Rogers (1986) reported a felt area of 181,000 mi2 (470,000 km2) and suggested the earthquake had a magnitude of ML 6.2 ± 0.3 based on regression equations that compare magnitude and felt area for Rocky Mountain earthquakes. The relatively large felt area, combined with only moderate reported intensities, suggested the earthquake occurred at a moderate hypocentral depth, perhaps about 12 miles (20 km) or more, similar to the 1984 Laramie Mountains, Wyoming earthquake.
No intensity ratings have been assigned to the known aftershock felt reports. In Laramie and Denver, however, the aftershock was reported to be nearly as strong as the main quake. If all known felt reports for the aftershock are included in a single felt area, it would encompass an area of about 24,000 mi2 (61,000 km2). This suggests the aftershock may have been around magnitude 4.5 to 5.0. An equally plausible interpretation could include the Denver, Boulder, Greeley, and Laramie felt reports in a smaller felt area and show the report from near Meeker as an isolated felt location.
The felt reports for the main shock do not define a consistent epicentral location. The felt area for the aftershock on November 8th at 4:45 a.m. local time and 1) the large number of higher intensity reports in the Denver-Fort Collins-Laramie area, 2) the Salina, Kansas felt report, 3) the unusually shaped isoseismal maps of recent Denver area earthquakes (as demonstrated by the isoseismal maps contained in this report), and 4) the intensity patterns associated with the October 15, 1984 Laramie Mountains earthquake (Oaks et al 1985); Spence et al 1996) suggest an epicentral area somewhere in north-central Colorado, perhaps in the northern Front Range or southern Laramie Mountains. An epicentral location of 40 1/2°N and 105 1/2° W has been assigned to both the main quake and the aftershock by Kirkham and Rogers (1986), but this location is probably accurate to only 1/2° latitude or longitude.
As part of a later seismotectonic evaluation of the Rocky Flats Plant conducted subsequent to the original release of Bulletin 46 (Kirkham and Rogers, 1985), G.A. Bollinger re-evaluated the 1882 earthquake (Risk Engineering, Inc., 1994, Appendix C). In general, he agreed with the epicentral location of Kirkham and Rogers (1986), but rather than selecting a specific location for the event, he assigned confidence levels of the earthquake having occurred in various areas defined by isoseismal or felt areas. Bollinger also estimated the magnitude of the earthquake using several methods. He suggested it had a moment magnitude of 6.44 and assigned a confidence of 80 percent that this value was correct.
Risk Engineering, Inc. (1994); p. 16, concluded that “Given currently-available data, the epicenter may have been anywhere in north-central or northwestern Colorado, southern Wyoming, or northeastern Utah, and the moment magnitude is estimated to have been in the range 5.0 ± 0.4 to 6.9 ± 0.2, with a best estimate of 6.4 ± 0.3”.
The 1882 earthquake has also been investigated by Spence and others (1996), who compared it with the 1984 Laramie Mountains, Wyoming earthquake. They concluded the epicenter for the 1882 event was probably in the northern Front Range in the general vicinity of the location proposed by Kirkham and Rogers (1986), estimated the earthquake would have had a felt area of 340,000 mi2 (870,000 km2) based on the current population distribution, and suggested it had a magnitude of Mw 6.6 ± 0.6. They stated that earthquakes of this size may occur at shallow to mid-crustal depths throughout the Laramie Mountains and Front Range. We have elected to use the magnitude determined by Spence and others (1996).
According to a 2013 analysis using FEMA’s HAZUS program, a repeat of this 1882 earthquake would cause a total of almost $30 billion (2022 USD) in economic loss from all sources, including the sum of building-related, transportation and utility lifeline, and utility system losses.
Information on other significant Colorado earthquakes is found on the main Earthquakes page, under the Colorado Earthquakes tab.
NOTE: Instructions on accessing pdf copies of the citations listed following may be found at our Earthquake Reference Collection, which contains more than 500 references related to seismicity in Colorado and the region.
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