The Golden Triangle has never sustained an earthquake.
The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality reported the closest one on record occurred in 2002, in Noxubee County, and it was not strong enough to be felt by residents or cause any damage.
Other places in Alabama and Mississippi have been feeling tremors, however.
The fifteenth earthquake in eight months left residents in Greene County, Alabama, a little shaken — literally — this morning. The 3.8-magnitude quake struck the county, roughly 60 miles southeast of Columbus, at approximately 1:44 a.m.
Iris Sermon, the director of the Greene County E911 center, said many downtown residents in Eutaw and rural areas felt the tremor. No damages have been reported.
Scientists are unsure why these earthquakes have been occurring. The county does not lie above a significant fault line, which cause most earthquakes when they shift beneath the earth’s surface.
Some speculated that the earthquakes could have been the result of the hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” which has been directly linked to earthquakes by the Seismological Society of America. However, regulators are discounting this theory, according to the Associated Press.
While Greene County is near Alabama’s primary region for oil and gas production, state geologist Nick Tew told the AP there is no fracking in the area where the earthquakes are taking place.
Although most of the tremors are minor, Sermon said it is disconcerting that so many have occurred.
“I think every citizen in Greene County is concerned, if they’ve felt them,” Sermon said.
Meanwhile, the third earthquake in two months took place in Madison County, Mississippi, on Monday morning. It had a magnitude of 3.2 and followed two others — magnitudes 3.2 and 3.0 — that took place May 2 in the same county.
Geologists have not identified the cause of these earthquakes either. Like Greene county, Madison county does not lie on a major fault line and is not a target for fracking.
While there is CO2 drilling in southwest Mississippi. Michael Bograd, the state geologist with the Mississippi Department of Environmental Equality, told The Clarion-Ledger that these injections are not related to Madison’s earthquakes.
“As far as I know, there is no connection,” Bograd said. “Something miles and miles away in southwestern Mississippi could not conceivably have had an effect this far away.”
Another theory for these strange quakes is the presence of something beneath the earth’s surface that has stayed quiet for 65 million years.
The city of Jackson, which is just south of Madison County, rests directly on top of an extinct volcano.
The Mississippi Coliseum, a 6500-seat stadium in Jackson, is right above the peak of this volcano. Jackson is the only capital city or major population center that is situated above an extinct volcano, according to the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality.
Some news organizations, such as the Inqusitr and WLBT, proposed the theory that this volcano may have been related to the area’s increased seismic activity. While volcanoes have been linked increased seismic activity, the earthquakes are caused by the movement of magma beneath active volcanoes.
According to Richard Rebich, the assistant center director for the Jackson branch of the United States Geological Services, this volcano probably had nothing to do with the earthquakes, since it has been silent for 65 million years.
Rebich said there may be some other underlying cause for these tremors that has not been discovered yet, beyond the random shifting of bedrock.
“Is three earthquakes in two months random?” Rebich said. “That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
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