Small earthquake rattles parts of NW Georgia
While the Peach State isn’t typically a hotbed of seismic activity, residents in northwest Georgia might have felt a little rumble Sunday morning.
A 2.4 magnitude earthquake happened just after 6:30 a.m. in Walker County, located about 2 miles southwest of LaFayette, according to the United States Geological Survey.
The temblor struck at a depth of about 3½ miles, officials said, which is considered a shallow quake.
No damage was immediately reported, and residents in the area, located about 100 miles northwest of downtown Atlanta, would have to have been paying close attention to feel any shaking.
Northwest Georgia sits on the Eastern Tennessee Seismic zone, one of three seismic zones that encompass most of the state, according to the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency. It is the most active region in terms of seismic activity and experiences about one magnitude 4.0 earthquake every five to 10 years, officials said.
This year, 20 earthquakes were recorded across the state, including 12 in northwest Georgia, USGS data showed.
Three small earthquakes rattled Georgia’s northern half during a four-day period from late March to early April. On March 29, the small northwest Georgia town of Trion recorded a 2.1 magnitude quake just before 4 a.m. It was recorded 3 miles deep, with about 10 people saying they felt it, USGS data showed.
The other two temblors, a 1.9 followed by a 2.0 magnitude, happened between 5 and 5:30 p.m. April 2 in Grovetown, a small city roughly 15 miles from the South Carolina border.
None exceeded a magnitude of 2.6.
In May, a 4.1 magnitude earthquake that originated in Greenback, Tennessee, shook homes in North Georgia and was felt all the way into metro Atlanta.
More than three dozen earthquakes of magnitude 2.5 or greater have been recorded across Georgia since 1974, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution previously reported, though the East Coast is not as active to the West Coast when it comes to seismic activity.
