Did you feel it?

Two earthquakes shook Kentucky over the weekend.

One of them was a 4.1 magnitude quake.

Our Christy Dutton spoke with the Kentucky Geological Survey about the earthquakes and what we should expect next.

Well, Doctor Seth Carpenter, when we get two earthquakes close together in Kentucky, raises a few eyebrows.

Is this unusual seismic activity for us?

It's not unusual.

Earthquakes aren't infrequent as, you're aware of, and when to happen in close proximity or nearby each other in time.

The it's not necessarily unusual.

Just reflects, sort of the complexity of the system, earthquake system and, you know, there's some subtleties and, and, how often these earthquakes might occur.

To be clear, the one earthquake, yesterday morning was, in fact, in Kentucky.

It was, you know, in northern Garrard County.

However, Saturday's earthquake was located down in Tennessee, about 30 miles or so south of Knoxville.

And that earthquake, though, was large enough that people in Kentucky did report feeling it.

Yeah, especially in eastern Kentucky or the eastern patch.

And so the earthquake there, to the south of Knoxville, Tennessee, that's long a seismic zone.

Is there a seismic zone or is that connected to the one in central Kentucky?

Good point.

And that earthquake did occur in what we referred to as the Eastern Tennessee Seismic Zone.

And it produces magnitude four or larger earthquakes.

Occasionally about every five years or so, if we average it.

The one that occurred in, northern Garrett County, it occurred in a region outside of any known zone of activity, quite, quite separate from the eastern Tennessee zone.

Earthquakes have occurred there before, but they are rare.

So.

Okay.

Because that does seem a bit unusual being in central Kentucky and not, really remembering a lot of, earthquake activity.

So, with those two earthquakes, when we start to see earthquakes happening, many of them kind of clump together, an uptick in seismic activity.

Does that cue any concern that that there might be more to follow?

Earthquakes can tell us when there are more to follow, but we need multiple earthquakes to tell us that, earthquakes that occur.

You know, and a relatively short amount of time, hours or within days of what we would call the main shock, the main shock being the largest events in a sequence.

We don't know ahead of time is both.

Quake will be a main shock or, foreshock.

But we can tell is earthquakes are aftershocks, and those are the ones that occur nearby in time and in space to the main shock.

But, but of a smaller magnitude.

And these are quakes.

Don't seem to, at least so far, be indicating anything related to a sequence in either one of the locations.

It does not mean that another earthquake couldn't happen.

But so far, it looks like they're isolated events.

And all that being said, the earthquake in, eastern Tennessee, that earthquake was large enough that there should be aftershocks that have occurred that are detectable by the seismic network.

I haven't seen those yet, but, I would I would be very surprised if there are not any.

Okay.

So be prepared for that.

And, just real fast.

A lot of people are wondering, are we overdue for a big destructive earthquake?

Because the big one around the corner.

I suppose I would be a rich man if I could answer that question.

The.

We really don't know.

Again, the earthquake that occurred in eastern Tennessee was characteristic of the zone.

It does produce that size earthquake every once in a while.

We don't have clear evidence of earthquakes larger than, say, magnitude five occurring in the eastern Tennessee seismic Zone, for sure.

At some point before we had instruments out there and maybe even before there were people in the region, there were large events just by virtue of the geological structures that are there.

But we don't have any reason to think that such large earthquakes could occur at this point.

Anything, say, larger than a magnitude, 5 or 6?

And we have not recorded earthquakes so strong there.

Elsewhere in Kentucky.

It's it's again possible that a larger earthquake could happen to say we're overdue.

You know, it's hard is a hard thing to say.

Earthquakes have surprised us in the past.

For example, the 1980 Sharpsburg earthquake was a bit of a surprise.

The here in the eastern third of the state.

And that could happen elsewhere.

The New Madrid zone is often the place that comes up with special interest regarding, when with next large will be, Okay, well, we'll keep an eye on it.

We will prepare for the worst and hope for the best then.

Thank you so much, Seth Carpenter.

Okay, Christy, welcome.

And thank you, Christy.

No injuries or damage were reported from either earthquake, according to the Kentucky Geological Survey.