Staff Reports
| Mississippi Clarion Ledger
VIDEO: Students practice earthquake drill for Great Oregon ShakeOut
Spencer Butte Middle School students participate in the Great Oregon ShakeOut, learning about earthquakes and what to do if one occurs.
A 2.5 magnitude earthquake struck near the Ross Barnett Reservoir on Thanksgiving Day, the United States Geological Survey confirmed.
The minor-earthquake struck around 12 kilometers southeast of Canton at a depth of 5 kilometers. It happened around 7:48 a.m. No damage was reported.
The quake was recorded on the north side of the of the reservoir near where Highway 43 crosses the lake and south of the Natchez Trace Parkway.
Earthquakes have occurred in the region before.
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“Until 2014, when the dramatic increase in earthquake rates gave Oklahoma the number one ranking in the conterminous U.S., the most seismically active area east of the Rocky Mountains was in the Mississippi Valley area known as the New Madrid seismic zone,” according to the USGS website.
In the winter of 1811 and 1812, according to the USGS, the New Madrid seismic zone “generated a sequence of earthquakes that lasted for several months and included three very large earthquakes estimated to be between magnitude 7 and 8. The three largest 1811-1812 earthquakes destroyed several settlements along the Mississippi River, caused minor structural damage as far away as Cincinnati, Ohio, and St. Louis, Missouri, and were felt as far away as Hartford, Connecticut, Charleston, South Carolina, and New Orleans, Louisiana.”
A 2.6 magnitude earthquake also struck in Oklahoma on Thanksgiving Day.
