USGS is reporting that an earthquake struck eastern Tennessee not far from Knoxville in the town of Greenback. USGS rated this one as a magnitude 2.6 earthquake and said it struck from a depth of 26.6 km; it struck today at 1:52 am. There were no reports of damage or injuries.
According to USGS, earthquakes with a magnitude of 2.0 or less are rarely felt or heard by people, but once they exceed 2.0 , more and more people can feel them. While damage is possible with magnitude 3.0 events or greater, significant damage and casualties usually don’t occur until the magnitude of a seismic event rises to a 5.5 or greater rated event.
Within the last 3 weeks, there were 5 other earthquakes within 150 miles of this latest quake; today’s earthquake was the strongest of those 5.
Today’s earthquake struck not far from where a more significant magnitude 4.1 event struck in May.
Earthquakes like the one that this morning in the eastern part of Tennessee are unlikely associated with the New Madrid Seismic Zone, an area of ongoing seismic activity located near the Mississippi River. However, while USGS says western Tennessee has a higher frequency of damaging earthquake shaking, the risk isn’t that low in eastern Tennessee. In the area of this most recent quake, USGS says its likely this area would see 50-100 damaging earthquakes over 10,000 years. While this number is low, it is much higher than it is elsewhere in the eastern half of the United States, where it’s likely to have 10 or less earthquakes over the same period.
