Only 16 hours after a weak earthquake struck not far away near Philadelphia, Tennessee, a stronger magnitude 2.3 earthquake struck near Tellico Plains, Tennessee in the eastern part of the state. The earthquake 10:16 pm Tuesday night at a depth of 12.2 km.
USGS, the agency responsible for monitoring earthquake activity, reported that several people reporting light shaking in the area around the epicenter. The earthquake hit 25 miles from the border with Georgia and only 15 miles from the border with North Carolina; all of the shaking reports came from residents within eastern Tennessee.
While this most recent earthquake was relatively weak with only light shaking reported, it adds to the number of earthquakes that have struck Tennessee within recent weeks. This was the 7th earthquake within last 7 days; 31 have hit in the last 30 days, and 263 struck in the past 365 days.
Most of the earthquakes over the last 7 days have been located in the western part of the state, where there has been considerable seismic activity in recent weeks. Western Tennessee is located within the New Madrid Seismic Zone, an area famous for a catastrophic series of earthquakes in 1811-1812 that were centered near New Madrid County, Missouri. The New Madrid Seismic Zone is also known as NMSZ for short.
