Southeast gets a Sunday shock: A 5.1-magnitude quake, centered in North Carolina

An 5.1-magnitude earthquake reported in North Carolina shook much of the Southeast early Sunday.

The quake occurred at 8:07 a.m. with an epicenter in Sparta, North Carolina — near the Virginia border, and just north of Stone Mountain State Park — according to the U.S. Geological Society. But the quake’s effects extended into much of the Southeast.

It was the second strongest quake to occur in North Carolina since 1900, according to the National Weather Service — the strongest being a 5.2 reported near Skyland in the Asheville area in 1916.

Where was it felt?

In North Carolina, the quake was felt as far away as the Raleigh area, The News & Observer reported. In the Charlotte area, there were widespread reports of shaking, McClatchy News reports. People near the epicenter reported feeling “strong shaking” from the quake.

Sparta is about 170 miles from Raleigh and about 100 from Charlotte.

Shaking extended through Western North Carolina and into Tennessee. Parts of Virginia were also rattled by the quake, the USGS says. There was also shaking reported in Kentucky.

Many in the Midlands region of South Carolina also reported feeling the quake, The State reports.

The earthquake was also felt in some areas of Georgia, a USGS map shows.

More than 6,000 people in seven states reported feeling the quake to the National Earthquake Information Center in Colorado, Randy Baldwin, geophysicist with the center, told The News & Observer.

“I was doing laundry when I felt the shake start, and I thought I had vertigo for a second,” Echo Idalski posted on Facebook from Moravian Falls, NC. “Then, my mind went to wondering if there was a malfunction with the AC. Probably 15 seconds later, just as it stopped, I ran out the front door to see the bird feeders and houses swinging with no wind. It was neat. “

A Twitter user in Georgia reported feeling like she was on a roller coaster.

Callie Carson, who was in a 27-foot camper in Sparta when the earthquake occurred, told The N&O it felt like riding a small boat on choppy water and was “kind of unnerving.”

Megan Lyon, who lives about 10 miles east of the epicenter, told The N&O it woke her up and that it felt like standing next to train tracks when a train came by.

Earthquakes in the eastern part of the United States, though less common, are typically felt at farther distances as seismic waves can travel farther, according to the USGS.

“Eastern North America has older rocks, some of which formed hundreds of millions of years before those in the West,” the USGS site says. “These older formations have been exposed to extreme pressures and temperatures, making them harder and often denser. Faults in these older rocks have also had more time to heal, which allows seismic waves to cross them more effectively when an earthquake occurs.”

Minimal damage

Earthquakes between 2.5 and 5.4 are “often felt” but usually only cause minor damage, according to Michigan Tech. An estimated 30,000 are reported each year.

The quake was about 2.3 miles deep. The more shallow an earthquake is, the more damage it can do.

No major damage was reported immediately following the quake, which lasted about 10 seconds, The News & Observer reports.

However, some social media users reported minor damages to homes and businesses.

Others showed damage to roads.

Aftershocks possible

“There is a good chance there will be aftershocks,” which can sometimes continue for a couple weeks after the quake, Baldwin told The N&O.

There’s only a 1% chance of aftershocks stronger than a magnitude 5.1, according to the USGS. It’s likely there will be “0 to 14” quakes with a magnitude of 3 or higher over the next week.

“The chance of an earthquake of magnitude 3 or higher is 48%, and it is most likely that as few as 0 or as many as 14 such earthquakes may occur in the case that the sequence is re-invigorated by a larger aftershock,” the USGS site says.

Officials recommend everyone be “aware of the possibility” for aftershocks, especially around or in “vulnerable structures,” the USGS says.

Imagined aftershocks — called “phantom earthquakes” — are possible after big quakes, McClatchy News previously reported.

“Aside from aftershocks, anyone caught up in the disaster may also experience the uncanny sensation of ‘phantom quakes,’ where it feels as if the earth is shaking when, in fact, it is perfectly still,” Dr. Daniel Glaser of King’s College London wrote in The Guardian in 2016 “This happens for the same reason as ‘sea legs’ — the swaying feeling you sometimes get when you walk on dry land after time on a boat.”

Prior quakes

The 5.1 magnitude earthquake wasn’t the first to shake the area Sunday morning.

A 2.6-magnitude quake with an epicenter Sparta occurred at 1:57 a.m. and a 2.2-magnitude one was reported at 2:06 a.m., the USGS says.

Four other quakes were reported near Sparta in the past 24 hours.

Other strong earthquakes have been reported in the region in the last decade.

A 5.8-magnitude quake rattled Virginia in 2011 — the largest to hit the eastern U.S. since 1944, causing power outages and $15 million in damage — and a 4.2-magnitude quake rattled eastern Kentucky in 2012, The N&O reports.

There’s a history of “seismic activity” in the region, especially around the Appalachian Mountains, The Charlotte Observer reported.

But still, some social media users said an earthquake in the Southeast was unexpected, even in 2020.