In the last 7 days, 14 earthquakes have struck the same general area around Coronaca, South Carolina which is south of Greenville-Spartanburg, west of Columbia, and north of Augusta, Georgia; authorities are warning about the possibility of more earthquakes in the hours and days ahead and want people taking appropriate steps to be prepared for that possibility. In the meantime, hundreds of people have reported feeling shaking or hearing loud booms to the USGS through their “Did you feel it?” website reporting tool.
Most of the earthquakes have struck within 3 miles of each other on the northeast shore of Lake Greenwood. There were two outliers that were 6 miles to the northwest on August 19 and 6 miles to the southeast on August 20. The strongest of this swarm was a magnitude 3.0 event while the weakest was a magnitude 1.7 event.
According to USGS, earthquakes with a magnitude of 2.0 or less are rarely felt or heard by people, but once they exceed 2.0 , more and more people can feel them. While damage is possible with magnitude 3.0 events or greater, significant damage and casualties usually don’t occur until the magnitude of a seismic event rises to a 5.5 or greater rated event.
The earthquake swarm has been impacting an area that lacks much seismicity. This swarm is not near another swarm that started northeast of Columbia in 2021 near the town of Elgin and has since wound down as of April of this year…