The Daily Southerner, Tarboro, NC

Local News

March 10, 2010

Quake activity normal

Jamicá C. Ashley

While recent news reports would make the public believe there have been more earthquakes than normal, experts say it's no more than before.

High magnitude earthquakes in Haiti, Chile, Turkey and California within weeks of one another have made the earth seem more unstable than normal.

"It's not an increase in seismic activity only press activity due to the many number of people affected," said Lara Wagner, seismologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "The number and temporal distribution of earthquakes is pretty constant."

Off the northern coast of California and centered in the Pacific Ocean, a 4.6 magnitude earthquake struck a little after midnight on the morning of March 6. No one was injured and no damages were reported.

Turkey endured a 7.0 magnitude quake on March 7 that killed 51 and has left hundreds homeless.

Chile was struck by a 8.8 magnitude quake on March 7 where the dead number into the hundreds and more than a million people have been displaced.

Haiti was struck on Jan. 12 with a 7.0 magnitude earthquake. More than 100,000 people were killed, thousands were injured and the country left in ruins.

"The seismic activity so far this year is not unusual, but several of the locations have been in places more familiar than what we're used to experiencing in a short period of time," said Eric Horsman, a structural geologist with East Carolina University's Department of Geological Sciences. "In the long run this is not strange but so much seismic activity close to home in such a short period of time is a little unsettling."

Unlike the above mentioned areas and others throughout the world that are either on or near tectonic plates, the eastern part of the state shouldn’t hold its breath waiting for the earth to shake.

"The risk of major seismic activity in Eastern N.C. is very small," Horsman said. "However, earthquakes are not impossible."

North Carolina is not known for earthquakes with the most recent one being recorded on Oct. 3, 2009 near Ashville by the U.S. Geological Survey. That earthquake had a magnitude of 2.5 and was 5.1 kilometers beneath the earth’s surface.

The largest earthquake in the state happened on Feb. 21, 1916 near Waynesville. It had a magnitude of 5.2 and was felt in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, South Carolina and West Virginia.

"Eastern North Carolina has very little seismic activity," Wagner said. "Western North Carolina has some small seismicity but nothing to worry about."

Both Wagner and Horsman agree that these series of events are merely a coincidence.

"One large misconception that comes up whenever a few earthquakes hit population centers within a short amount of time is that this means the number of earthquakes is increasing," said Wagner. "Most of these earthquakes happen in areas with little to no population density and so are not picked up on the press.

"There's nothing in these two earthquakes that would make us thing that there’s been any kind of increase in seismic activity. There are, on average, 15-20 magnitude seven or higher events per year but most happen in places that don’t affect people or press," Wagner continued. "The magnitude 8.8 in Chile is remarkable because it is so large (the 7th highest on record) but every now and then, [places like Chile, Sumatra or Alaska] are going to experience large events of this sort."

And what about aftershocks? They are common with large earthquakes but they are still earthquakes.

"Earthquakes almost always happen in clusters," Horsman said. "What we usually call 'aftershocks' are a normal part of the earthquake cycle – it is rare for a single quake to release all of the stress built up on a major (earthquake) so some aftershocks are usually necessary to finish the job started by the major earthquake."

Even with the technological advances made in the sciences that have saved countless lives, earthquake prediction is still a dream.

"We cannot predict the timing of major earthquakes with any certainty whatsoever," Horsman said. "Hopefully this will change in the future but we are a long way off from accomplishing this goal."

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