Small quake shakes Tennessee

It has been in the works for quite a while: "On the morning of June 19, Tennessee will experience a 7.7 magnitude earthquake inside the New Madrid Seismic Zone near Memphis." What they weren't counting on was a Real quake to strike Tennessee that day.

Tuesday June 19th is the start of one of the states largest emergency response drills. While the main focus of the simulation is the New Madrid Seismic Zone near Memphis, a real earthquake was being felt 170 miles east near the small town of Spencer (about 50 miles North of Chattanooga).

Although the quake was not widely felt, it is a constant reminder that earthquakes can occur at anytime and anyplace and they don't always strike along active fault lines. Tuesdays quake measured 3.3 and occurred at 1:16 PM local time.

If you think that earthquakes never happen in this area, you may be interested in this map which shows all earthquakes in the area (since 1970) with a magnitude of 2.5 or greater.

Here is the map showing the specific location of this quake

Related Links:
New Madrid Seismic Zone
Tennessee Earthquake Information
Tennessee to test earthquake plan