08/09/2020
What's Shakin' you guys?
The biggest earthquake I have ever seen on the east coast has just struck in North Carolina! A 5.1 magnitude has hit near Sparta, North Carolina at 8:07 a.m. EST. (That is not the Stone Mountain State Park in Georgia)
This is the largest earthquake to rattle this area in almost a century! The largest earthquake on record in the North Carolina area had a magnitude of 5.1 and struck in 1916.
The reason the east coast of the United States does not receive many large quakes, in comparison to the west coast, is because the tectonic plate for the United States starts on the west coast and goes all the way out into the middle of the Atlantic ocean, putting the east coast the middle of the plate. If it wasn't for the North American craton, we would not get any earthquakes. The craton is the line of mountains that runs from the west to the east coast and is kind of the opposite of a fault line. Instead of going into the earth, it protrudes out and makes mountain ranges.
There are 53,084 felt reports from this quake alone as of right now according to the USGS. If you felt this quake please comment what happened and what it felt like. Is there any damage or was it just slight vibrations?
I have never seen a quake of this size this far into the east coast before and that energy is going to work it's way up following the North American craton, and most likely release in Massachusetts at around a 3.0 magnitude in the next 24 hours.
I seriously can not believe this has happened. I will be looking into the cause of this and update you all when I find out what happened..
So I'm not seeing anything that would have caused this quake to happen.. I don't want to say it just came out of the blue but that's what it's seeming like. I'm going to be doing more research throughout the day.
Be safe you guys. Much love❤️
