Since the middle of June, Virginia has had about 5-6 smaller scaled earthquakes. Virginia usually feels a small earthquake roughly once every six months, it has had another one just Monday night bringing the total to 6 since mid June. Small on the seismograph, aka, seismometer, and at a magnitude of around 2.5, some still felt the ground shake.
Professor of Geophysics and director of the Seismological Observatory at Virginia Tech, Martin Chapman, says “not to panic, and also added it is “hard to forecast.” Chapman does admit that this much activity is a bit unusual. He added, “I can’t sit here and tell you these things aren’t foreshocks. …Sometimes bigger earthquakes are proceeded by smaller earthquakes, and they are called foreshocks.” Chapman said, “I think anytime you have a smaller earthquake, you should have a heightened awareness of earthquakes in general.” The last major, destructive earthquake Virginia felt the wrath of was in 2011 when a 5.8 magnitude hit the state close to the Washington D.C. area. It caused about $300 million in damage.
Comments