In the eastern United States on Thanksgiving Day, Virginia, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Arkansas were all hit by earthquakes, according to the USGS. The largest of the quakes, measuring 2.5 on the Richter scale, happened in Mississippi. The others were between 1.8 and 1.9 on the Richter scale. Some people felt the ground shake or heard a boom, but none of them were strong enough to hurt or damage anyone.
The first one happened in central Virginia just before midnight last night. At 11:39 pm, the 1.8-magnitude earthquake hit near Louisa, Virginia, which is north and west of Richmond. It happened 0.3 km below the surface.
The second one hit near Canton, Mississippi, at 1:48 a.m. from a depth of 5 km. Canton is north and east of Jackson.
The next three quakes happened in western Tennessee, close to each other. The first one happened at 4:23 am, and the others happened at 4:39 am and 4:59 am. After the third one, at 5:08 am, a fourth one happened in the same general area. There were quakes near Ridgely, which is in the New Madrid Seismic Zone. They were between 5.9 km and 6.1 km deep.
Strawberry, Arkansas was hit by the other quake at 4:24 am. It was a magnitude 2.1 event that happened 8 km below the surface and is also thought to have happened in the New Madrid Seismic Zone.
There were a few small earthquakes last night, but no major damage was reported. However, the government is worried that people aren’t ready for when a big earthquake will hit this area. It’s not so much a question of “if” there will be a big earthquake in this area, but “when.” In this case, the earthquake in Tennessee happened in the New Madrid Seismic Zone, or NMSZ. This and the other two quakes were not very strong, but they happened in a place where a strong earthquake would happen again someday.
