Residents of the city of Abilene, Texas, were rocked by an earthquake late last night that was felt as far away as Austin, nearly 200 miles to the southeast
Seismicity reached 4.9 on the Richter earthquake scale—strong enough to cause noticeable shaking indoors and even create minor cracks in walls and ceilings.
The earthquake’s epicenter was located near the Scurry-Fisher County line, 54 miles northwest of Abilene and just 10 miles northeast of Hermleigh, with the quake occurring at 10:38 p.m. local time, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).
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USGS map of where the tremors from the earthquake were felt (main) and a stock image of a seismograph (inset). This earthquake had a 4.9 magnitude.
ISTOCK / GETTY IMAGES PLUS / USGS
Seismologists report that the earthquake’s focal point was just 4.8 miles beneath the surface, meaning it was fairly shallow.
An aftershock with a 4.4 magnitude occurred only minutes later, just northwest of the first quake, with a third magnitude 3.1 shock being felt in the early hours of the morning.
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People around northern Texas, as well as in southern Oklahoma and New Mexico, and Austin, felt the tremors, USGS data shows.
This quake is the eighth strongest to have ever hit Texas, according to local news outlet KLBK. There are no current reports of damage or injuries from the earthquake.
The Richter scale, also known as the Richter magnitude scale, is a logarithmic scale used to quantify the amount of energy released by an earthquake. Each whole number increase on the Richter scale represents a tenfold increase in measured amplitude and approximately 31.6 times more energy released: a magnitude 5.0 earthquake releases about 31.6 times more energy than a magnitude 4.0 earthquake.
A magnitude 4.9 earthquake is classified as a light earthquake on the Richter scale, which means that it may be strong enough to wake people who are sleeping, and can cause noticeable shaking of indoor items, such as rattling of windows, dishes, and doors. While a 4.9 magnitude earthquake is unlikely to cause significant structural damage to buildings, it can have minor impacts like creating small cracks in walls or ceilings.
Earthquakes of this magnitude occur frequently around the world.
Earthquakes are caused by the sudden release of energy in the planet’s crust that creates seismic waves. They commonly occur at the boundaries of tectonic plates, due to movements of the plates against one another.
Away from faultlines, earthquakes can also be triggered by volcanic activity as magma moves through the planet’s crust, or certain human activities, such as mining, geothermal energy extraction, and hydraulic fracturing (fracking).
According to seismology site Volcano Discovery, the amount of energy released by this earthquake was equivalent to 338 tons of TNT. They estimate that around 1.6 million people across the country may have felt some degree of tremor from this quake, with 630,000 people living in areas with “light” shaking on the Modified Mercalli Intensity scale, with around 5,000 living in areas where shaking may have reached “Moderate” strength. The remaining 969,000 people felt “weak” shaking.
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