The epicenter of a 3.0 magnitude earthquake that rocked Virginia today is situated in Buckingham County, around five miles south of the town of Dillwyn.
According to the US Geological Survey, more than 150 individuals in Virginia and other neighboring states, including North Carolina,
Pennsylvania, and Maryland, reported experiencing shaking up to intensity level four when the tremor struck just after 1pm ET.
According to the USGS, these earthquakes are “moderate” and “felt indoors by many, outdoors by few during the day.” It can shake parked automobiles,
Smash crockery, and rattle doors at night. It can even be powerful enough to wake some people awake. No casualties or damage have been reported as of 3:20 PM ET.
Because Virginia is located in the center of the North American tectonic plate, distant from its seismically active boundaries, earthquakes seldom occur there.
However, this is not the first instance of it. In January, Richmond, Virginia had a magnitude 2.8 earthquake of comparable magnitude, with over 1,000 individuals experiencing trembling.
Additionally, the same region experienced “severe” shaking from a magnitude 5.8 earthquake in 2011, which caused damage to the Washington Monument in Washington, DC.
There are faults that run across Virginia despite its location in the center of the North American plate.
The depths at which they create earthquakes are far deeper than those seen on the West Coast.According to the Virginia Department of Energy,
It is not always easy to link a particular earthquake to a particular fault since most Virginia earthquakes occur between three and fifteen miles below the surface.
The origin of today’s earthquake, which occurred at a depth of around five miles, is yet unknown. Because of the structure of the basement rock.
The old rocks that make up the Earth’s crust—earthquakes on the East Coast are less powerful than those on the West Coast, but they are felt across a considerably larger area.
According to the Virginia Department of Energy, an earthquake in Virginia may have an impact up to ten times bigger than one of the same magnitude in the western United States.
According to some experts, this state could one day be rocked by a massive, devastating earthquake.
According to James R. Martin II, the former director of the Earthquake Engineering Center for the Southeastern United States, “new seismological
Research indicates that the southern Appalachian highlands have the potential for even larger earthquakes than have occurred in the past.”
However, he noted, “those events would now take place in much more highly populated areas.” “[Virginians] are under a significant threat of large, damaging earthquakes,” according to Martin.
Shaking would spread far from the epicenter and affect a large region if a significant earthquake were to occur in this state.
According to a Virginia Department of Energy release, “the earth’s crust is stronger here,” said Martin Chapman, director of the Virginia Tech Seismological Observatory.
Accordingly, shock waves traveling away from an earthquake’s epicenter don’t lose as much energy as they would during California earthquakes. For instance, the 2011 earthquake caused modest.
To moderate damage in central Virginia, Washington, DC, and southern Maryland, and it was felt by millions of people around the eastern coast.
Virginia has had about 200 earthquakes since 1977. They were big enough to shake the earth, at least 29 of them. One of the roughly six quakes that Virginia experiences year is felt.
