Scientists baffled by 10 recent earthquakes that have shaken South Carolina
By Mark Lungariello
January 5, 2022 9:09pm

South Carolina was rocked by 10 earthquakes in little more than a week, sending experts scrambling to figure out what’s set off the shaky trend.

Two quakes were detected by the US Geological Survey on Wednesday, the latest in a string of tremors dating back to Dec. 27. None of the earthquakes has registered higher than that first 3.3-magnitude event, which was measured in Richland and Kershaw counties, officials said.

That may mean the other quakes are aftershocks, though the fact they’re still coming more than a week later is unusual.

“They’re not dying away the way we would expect them to,” Steven Jaume, a College of Charleston geology professor, said. “What does that mean? I don’t know.”

The state is actually near a regional fault system created when the Appalachian Mountains were formed that is long dormant — but could be waking back up, Jaume told WRDW / WAGT.

“If they don’t get any bigger, they are more of an annoyance than a concern,” he said. “I am envious of meteorologists because they can see the storms coming. We can’t see earthquakes coming there is nothing we can record that tells us something bigger is coming.”

Don Blakeman of the National Earthquake Center told The Greenville News the cluster of activity is common around the country. The string of earthquakes hasn’t caused any damage.

“It takes about a magnitude 4 to start seeing damage like knocked off shelves,” he said. “We typically don’t see structural damage to buildings in the United States until like a magnitude 5.”

The state usually has about up to 20 quakes each year, the South Carolina Emergency Management Division.

https://nypost.com/2022/01/05/scient...outh-carolina/