Up until last August, tonight’s 3.2 earthquake in central Virginia would have been big news. But in the wake of August’s 5.8 quake that shook much of the East Coast, the steady stream of light tremors in & around Louisa since then haven’t gotten much attention. More on tonight’s temblor from WTVR’s Zach Daniel:
A magnitude 3.2 aftershock occurred at 6:39 PM this evening 5 miles south of Louisa and was felt across much of central Virginia. This aftershock was one of the strongest since the original quake back in August. I’ve been getting a lot of questions on my facebook page about these aftershocks, and specifically when we can call them a new earthquake. Technically, all of these aftershocks are earthquakes, but we call them aftershocks because they are smaller earthquakes associated with the larger seismic event (the 5.8 magnitude quake). If an aftershock is stronger than the original earthquake, it will be deemed the main quake, and all subsequent seismic activity will be referred to as foreshocks. Here’s hoping tonight’s was the last of them, but I doubt it.
While the U.S. Geological Survey has linked natural gas fracking to recent earthquakes in Youngstown, OH, talk linking fracking to Virginia’s quake has been more speculative. Did you feel tonight’s quake?
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