Bizarre Swarm of Earthquakes Near Asheville, NC

Thought of this thread after reading an interesting article in the Daily Mail. It's not the UK's most trusted or liked newspaper but occasionally the pages and pages of celebrity rubbish do throw up a good bit of science news.

The southeastern United States has been hit by a series of strange unexplained quakes - most recently, the 2011 magnitude-5.8 earthquake near Mineral, Virginia that shook the nation's capital. Researchers have been baffled, believing the areas should be relatively quiet in terms of seismic activity, as it is located in the interior of the North American Plate, far away from plate boundaries where earthquakes usually occur. Now, they believe the quakes could be caused by pieces of the Earth's mantle breaking off and sinking into the planet.

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a reply to: barwars47

Interesting, though I always read the daily mail with skeptisism ... I had no idea that the Quake in Mineral was actually felt by more people than anyt other in history... I know it's because the geology is different va the west coast, so it travels farther.


Wouldn't that also mean that if a serious quake hit the damage would be catastrophic? And spread over a much larger area? Couple that with the fact that buildings on the east coast are not built to withstand any EQ, to my knowledge... I would think it could be even more devastating that if the "big one" happened in Cali.

Kind of sobering to think of. Earthquakes really aren't on the radar for people in this area to even think about planning for. Floods, fires, tornados, hurricanes and similar natural disasters are relatively common.... But not EQ. Not really.

Hmm