5 earthquakes have hit Virginia since mid-June. Is the big one coming?

VIRGINIA – In less than 30 days, five earthquakes have rocked different parts of Virginia, alarming residents and leaving some experts wondering what might happen next.

Just this past weekend, a 2.6-magnitude earthquake was detected in Carroll County near the Virginia-North Carolina border, according to the USGS. Two days ago, a 2.7-magnitude earthquake struck near Healesville County.

Since June 16, the USGS has recorded three more small earthquakes in two additional counties – magnitude 2.3 in Craig County, and magnitudes 2.6 and 2.3 in Giles County.

At such a steady clip, Virginians and experts alike wonder, will the next earthquake be soon? Will it be bigger?

Given the uptick in activity, there could be a larger quake, Martin Chapman, a professor of geophysics at Virginia Tech, told WTOP. So far, the earthquakes that have hit Virginia in recent weeks have been small. According to the USGS, a magnitude of 5.3 is considered a moderate earthquake, and a magnitude of 6.3 is considered a strong earthquake.

“It’s very little activity here,” Chapman told WTOP. “When you see a series of these things in a smaller area, you have to take into account the fact that they could be harbingers of a larger earthquake.”

According to the USGS, a precursor is an earthquake that precedes a larger earthquake at the same location. In general, an earthquake cannot be identified as a precursor until a larger earthquake occurs in the same area.

And he is right. Virginia has experienced more than 160 earthquakes since 1977, according to data collected by Virginia Tech. Of those, 16 percent felt it. This equates to an average of one earthquake per month with two earthquakes being felt each year.

For several decades, seismic activity has been strongest in and around Giles County and central Virginia, according to Virginia Tech.

The largest earthquake to hit Virginia in recent years was on August 23, 2011, when a 5.8-magnitude earthquake struck Mineral. Millions of people across the eastern United States felt the earthquake’s tremors, yet no lives were lost. However, the earthquake caused an estimated $200-300 million in damages.

Before the mineral earthquake, the largest earthquake to occur in Virginia was the 5.8-magnitude Giles County earthquake in 1897, according to the USGS. This earthquake, the third largest recorded in the eastern United States in the past 200 years, was felt in 12 states.

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