Four more small tremors shake East Tennessee quake zone

by Dick Byrd, published in The Daily Times 6/10/2012
Last week The Daily Times reported four small earthquakes in the East Tennessee Seismic Zone within six days.
Now four more have hit within four days. These were: a 2.1 magnitude tremor Wednesday near Maryville; two 2.0 earthquakes Friday near Ringgold, Ga.; and a 1.5 Saturday near Niota.

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UT Professor of Structural Geology And Tectonics Robert Hatcher told the Daily Times a week ago that recent studies have found this area is capable of bigger quakes but it can’t be determined when or how big. The U.S. Geological Survey rates this region as potentially capable of producing a magnitude 7.5 earthquake.
The four most recent quakes break down like this:
• Wednesday: magnitude 2.1, 5.4 miles deep 6 miles southwest of Maryville
• Friday: two quakes, each magnitude 2.0, 6.3 and 7.8 miles deep and 4 miles south of Ringgold, Ga.
• Saturday: magnitude 1.5, 4.7 miles deep and 4 miles northwest of Niota and 7 miles west southwest of Sweetwater.
• The East Tennessee seismic zone stretches from Northeast Alabama to Southwest Virginia and gets between 70 and 100 small earthquakes per year. Scientists say the zone is about half as active as the New Madrid seismic zone.
That zone includes West Tennessee and four other states.