Earthquake Near Raleigh

This morning there was a small earthquake (magnitude of only 2.6) in the piedmont region of North Carolina. There are no reports of any severe property damage or injury. I'm sure there is some correlation between this and the earthquake(s) in Hawaii. Perhaps the plates re-adjusting themselves? There are no converging or diverging plates until you get to South Carolina though (the Charleston area has a long history of quakes) which I find to be curious.

Quakes happen all the time, everywhere. If that quake there is correlated with Hawaii's quake, then all quakes are correlated.

(Well indirectly they are, because of the plate tectonics). But I hope you understand what I mean.


That's like saying a thunderstorm in Spain has correlation to a hurricane in the caribbean.

I know, but they don't happen often at all around here. At least not measurable ones. When I say it could possibly be directly related to the Hawaii quake, I'm just speculating. I know all quakes are connected because they are all - well most of them anyway - caused by the ever-changing tectonic plates either pulling apart or sliding beneath/on top of one another beneath our feet.

[edit on 17-10-2006 by oxygen_kills]

Hi--

I beg to differ with you, Oxy--they definately DO happen around here. I've lived in NC most of my life, in the mountains, and I have been in 5 that registered more than 2.0 and one that registered better than 3.2. We have tremors all the time.

I live about 12 miles southwest of the epicenter, and felt the 2.6 we had at 4:57 EDT this morning. It was nowhere near Raleigh, unless you consider 110 miles WNW of there "close". The epicenter was, in fact, located near the Smith/Reynolds Airport in Winston Salem about 5 km underground. Here, it sounded exctly like an explosion--a sharp "boom" followed by the floor jumping and the rattling of windows. The whole event lasted about 5 seconds. Since I live in an area where bedrock is either exposed or very close to the surface, (lots of gravel quarries in the area), we feel light tremors here quite often.

FWIW, the last thing on my mind was "quake". I just thought something blew up.

Been in NC all my life (33 yrs) and its widely know that there is a small fault line in the northern Piedmont region running from north of Raleigh west towards the north of Greensboro and west towards the north of Winston-Salem. No news here...very small earthquakes while not an everyday occurence, are not out of the ordinary here.

This just in --

We have had 2 more--aftershocks of the 2.6 this morning. They are a 1.5 around 7 pm and a 2.4 around 9:30 pm. These last 2 were in different locations a bit furtjher southwest and southeast of the first. We felt neither aftershock here.

Officials from the Earthquake Information Center reports tremors were felt in seven states including: Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina and South Carolina.

Again...nothing to get excited about...no conspiracy. Just mother nature.

I remember reading a fault line actually ran through the NC State campus in Raleigh. Some buildings were not built as tall as others as a result I thought I read. I thought it seemed like an earthquake every time a train went by a certain tall building I was in when I lived there. The whole 12 story building would sway back and forth every time a large train went by.

I'll agree there are sporadic low level earthquakes in the carolinas from time to time. They seem to be a bit rare but they do happen.

And another, this time a 4.9

The quake measured 4.9 on the Richter scale, according to a preliminary report issued by the U.S. Geological Survey. The quake’s epicenter was located about 260 miles northwest of San Francisco, according to the US

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