Residents in the vicinity of Richmond, Virginia, were shocked by a minor earthquake this week, serving as a reminder that earthquake hazards are not limited to the East Coast.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the 2.8 earthquake struck Tuesday just before 5:30 p.m. EST, around 13 miles northwest of the state capital and 6 miles northwest of Glen Allen, Virginia. The tremors were reported by residents of Henrico County and Richmond. There were no reported casualties or damage.
According to the USGS, the most extensively felt earthquake in American history occurred in 2011 close to Mineral, Virginia, which is roughly 50 miles from Richmond.
The Washington Monument and National Cathedral in the nation’s capital were among the more than $200 million worth of damage inflicted by the earthquake that struck on August 23.
With a magnitude of 5.8, it wasn’t one of the nation’s strongest earthquakes, but because of the East Coast’s distinct topography, it was felt significantly more widely and farther than the more frequent West Coast quakes.
Do earthquakes rarely occur on the East Coast?
The U.S. government reports that although earthquakes are far less often in the east than in the west, they have been recorded in every state east of the Mississippi River. At some point, there have been earthquakes big enough to cause damage in almost every eastern state.
According to the Department of Geological and Mining Engineering and Sciences at Michigan Technological University, seismologists estimate that over 900,000 earthquakes occur globally each year, although the great majority occur near plate boundaries that are absent from the eastern and midwestern U.S.
Small to moderate earthquakes occasionally catch the East Coast by surprise in places like New York and New Jersey.
The East has already seen powerful earthquakes, and we can estimate their magnitude based on records from temblors hundreds of years ago. A 6.0 earthquake that struck 50 miles outside of Boston in November 1775 seriously damaged the city.
Much of Charleston, South Carolina, was damaged or destroyed in 1886 by an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.8 to 7.2.
The next year, the USGS reported that the 2011 Virginia earthquake sent devastating shocks four times farther and across an area 20 times greater than ever before, causing landslides 150 miles away.
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Why earthquakes in the East are perceived differently?
According to the USGS, earthquakes in the East can be more dangerous than those in the West because they can impact a wider area, even though they are typically not as powerful as those in places like California.
This is due to the fact that rocks in the country’s eastern region are considerably older—in some cases, millions of years.
Because faults have had more time to mend and older rocks have been subjected to more intense temperatures and pressures, they are harder and denser, which makes it easier for seismic waves to pass through them. Newer faults in the West absorb more seismic wave energy and prevent it from spreading as widely.
Millions of people were affected by the 2011 Virginia earthquake. The USGS estimates that the earthquake caused roughly 4,000 aftershocks that persisted for ten years.
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According to the USGS, earthquakes on the East Coast also produce “higher-frequency shaking (fast back-and-forth motion) compared to similar events in the West.”
