Tennessee

This was a minor earthquake. Quakes this small are rarely felt and do not cause damage.

At this magnitude and depth it was probably too small to be felt, even directly above it. Estimated from magnitude, depth and distance with the intensity equation USGS Did You Feel It? uses; felt reports, where there are any, are the measurement.

Earthquakes near other towns within 30 km: Vonore, Greenback, Tellico Village, Madisonville, Loudon, Lenoir City.

How big was it?

This earthquake released about 17 lb of TNT. Magnitude is logarithmic: each whole step up releases about 32 times more energy, so a magnitude 2.8 would have released about 32 times as much.

1. Mineral, Virginia 2011 M 5.8 870,000× the energy of this one
2. Magna, Utah 2020 M 5.7 620,000× the energy of this one
3. Around the size people start to feel M 3.0 55× the energy of this one
4. This earthquake M 1.8 about 17 lb of TNT

Energy from the Gutenberg–Richter relation (log₁₀E = 1.5M + 4.8), rounded to two figures; bar length is magnitude, which is already a logarithm of energy. Magnitudes of past earthquakes from the USGS catalogue.

For this area

The largest earthquake within 50 km since 2016 was M 4.4 on 2018-12-12 — about 6,900 times the energy of this one.

Before 2016, the USGS record since 1900 lists no earthquake of M5 or more within 50 km.

Since 2016: the QuakeIndex catalogue (US, M1.5+), built from the USGS FDSN event service. Before 2016: USGS ComCat, M5+ from 1900. Distances are between epicentres. This is the record, not a forecast.

Where

Epicentre 35.6105, -84.2022. Map © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Nearby places

Places and coordinates from the US Census Bureau Gazetteer (2024). Distances are from the epicentre.

Aftershocks so far

56 earthquakes have been recorded within 50 km since this one.

1. 1.6 16 km SE of Vonore, Tennessee 05:00 UTC
2. 1.8 4 km SSW of Tellico Village, Tennessee 00:39 UTC
3. 1.9 1 km WNW of Tellico Village, Tennessee 14:49 UTC
4. 2.3 1 km NW of Niota, Tennessee 09:12 UTC
5. 1.7 7 km SW of Maryville, Tennessee 08:34 UTC
6. 2.1 7 km SW of Maryville, Tennessee 02:42 UTC
7. 2.3 7 km SW of Maryville, Tennessee 02:39 UTC
8. 2.0 0 km WSW of Alcoa, Tennessee 14:33 UTC
9. 1.8 5 km NNE of Niota, Tennessee 11:01 UTC
10. 2.0 5 km S of Englewood, Tennessee 03:18 UTC
11. 1.7 2 km SSE of Philadelphia, Tennessee 10:37 UTC
12. 1.9 3 km N of Madisonville, Tennessee 07:22 UTC
13. 1.8 11 km SW of Tellico Plains, Tennessee 23:35 UTC
14. 1.6 7 km W of Tellico Plains, Tennessee 17:12 UTC
15. 1.9 11 km SE of Tellico Plains, Tennessee 18:31 UTC

Counted from the QuakeIndex database, which ingests the USGS feed every 30 seconds · as of 11:45 UTC. QuakeIndex does not forecast aftershocks. When USGS issues an operational aftershock forecast it appears on the USGS event page.

On USGS

• The official USGS event page — the source of record for every value above
• Did you feel it? Report it to USGS — reports go to USGS, not to us
• ShakeMap for this event, when USGS has produced one

QuakeIndex does not issue warnings. For earthquake early warning see ShakeAlert.