CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) — Early Friday morning, the U.S. Geological Survey detected a minor submarine earthquake on a historic fault line off the Lowcountry’s coast.
At 3:48 a.m., a 2.0 magnitude earthquake shook the ocean floor approximately 20.5 miles south-southeast of McClellanville, specifically at coordinates 32.796° north, 79.389° west. It had a reported depth of about 6.5 miles.
That earthquake occurred on the Helena Banks Fault Zone, which runs largely parallel to Charleston County’s coast. The fault is associated with Mesozoic rifting during the separation of the Pangea supercontinent, according to the USGS.
The fault was discovered in the 1980s by USGS geologist and researcher John Behrendt…