Earthquake Strikes Georgia

At 4:15 am on December 12, residents of Georgia and Tennessee felt the shakes of the area’s first earthquake since spring of 2003. Personally, when I woke up, and my whole house was shaking, I thought it was pretty fun. Although, I had a lighthearted approach to this natural disaster, many Georgians woke up thinking their home was going to collapse, but I would say most people didn’t even wake up to notice the trembles.

The epicenter of the quake was some 100 miles north of Atlanta in eastern Tennessee, but due to the strong bedrock making up the southeast, tremors were felt all the way into south Georgia. Readings at the epicenter registered the quake as a 4.4 magnitude, making it the strongest earthquake in the region since 1916’s 4.4.

No damage was caused by the quake, but the positioning of the epicenter was potentially catastrophic. It struck a few miles from a major nuclear power plant, multiple fossil fuel power plants, and a few hydropower dams. Luckily, because all American infrastructure is built to withstand seismic activity, all of Tennessee and Georgia’s power plants remained operational.

The word earthquake may bring images of California and the Himalayas to mind, but Georgia is not an unheard of place for a quake to strike. In fact, the Appalachian Mountains,which begin in Georgia, were millions of years ago as prominent as the Himalayas. Overtime the erosion has whittled the peaks and the fault lines have settled so earthquakes are much less frequent. Unlike California, which has the huge and active San Andreas Fault Line, the southeast is home to a less defined belt of faults.

Due to the ingenuity of Americans over the past century in construction, no damage was caused by what could have been a devastating earthquake. For now, this quake is at the top of our minds, but it will fade as the years go by, and before we know it in another decade or two Georgia may be hit by another set of seismic tremors.

By Jake Bogartz