According to USGS, a relatively mild earthquake rated as a magnitude 2.4 event struck northern Alabama Monday night. The earthquake rattled the area at 10:00 pm near the town of Sipsey, Alabama, north and west of Birmingham, The earthquake’s epicenter had a shallow depth of 1.8 km. No damage was reported but more than 80 residents used the USGS “Did You Feel It?” tool to report feeling or hearing the earthquake.
According to the Geological Survey of Alabama (GSA), earthquakes aren’t completely rare in the state. According to GSA, “Most of the earthquakes we experience in Alabama are associated with the Southern Appalachian Seismic Zone (an extension of the East Tennessee Seismic Zone) that runs along the Appalachian Mountains from the northeastern corner into the central part of the state and the Bahamas Fracture Seismic Zone in southern Alabama.
The strongest earthquake to ever hit the state was a magnitude 5.1 event in 1916 in northern Shelby County.
The second and third strongest earthquakes were each rated as a magnitude 4.9 event. One struck in DeKalb County, 10 miles northeast of Fort Payne, on April 29, 2003. The earthquake was widely felt across the northern half of Alabama and Georgia, much of Tennessee, and even portions of Kentucky, North and South Carolina, and Mississippi. The other struck in Escambia County on October 24, 1997; that earthquake was responsible for a berm around a lake to fail, spilling water and fish across a road. Large cracks also developed in sand along a creek not far from the epicenter. Both 4.9 magnitude events did some damage, mainly to weaker masonry found in the northern part of the state.
