2.5-magnitude quake shakes up north Georgia county, USGS says
A 2.5-magnitude earthquake struck Whitfield County, Georgia, late Sunday, rattling the area just northwest of Dalton, the U.S. Geological Survey reported.
The five-kilometer deep quake shook the area just after 11:30 p.m. Residents in nearby Rocky Face and Tunnel Hill reported feeling the tremors, according to the agency. As of Monday afternoon, nearly 35 felt reports had been submitted to the USGS.
No damage or injuries were reported.
Dalton, which has a population of nearly 34,000 residents, was just four miles east southeast of the quake’s epicenter, the USGS reported. Tunnel Hill was just 3.5 miles from the epicenter and felt most of the tremors.
The moment magnitude scale, or MMS, measures the energy released at the source of an earthquake, the U.S. Geological Survey says. It replaced the old Richter scale in the 1970s.
Quakes between 2.5 and 5.4 magnitude are often felt but rarely cause much damage, according to Michigan Tech.
This story was originally published July 6, 2020 at 12:46 PM.