The magnitude-4.4 earthquake that shook the San Francisco bay area
Wednesday evening seemed to go unnoticed on the ground floor of the
Marriott Hotel during the AEJMC opening reception, but
convention-goers on upper floors felt the jolt.

"I was just leaving my room," said Penny Sheets, a University of
Minnesota graduate student. "I thought it was thunder."
Sheets' room is on the seventh floor.

Michael Field Dahlstrom came to the AEJMC conference from the
University of Wisconsin-Madison and was glum about missing the quake.

"I wish I would have felt it," he said.
James P. Herman was in his room on the 29th floor when he felt the hotel sway.

"It's kind of scary," said Herman, the director of recruitment and
development for the Indianapolis Star. "You wonder [if it's the big
one]. It got me to stop working for a while."

The earthquake, which the U.S. Geological Survey termed "light" on
its Web site, occurred at 8:08 p.m. Its epicenter was 42 miles
northwest of San Francisco.

Three smaller earthquakes with nearby epicenters occurred in the
following two hours.