2020 Sparta Earthquake
   HOME
*



picture info

2020 Sparta Earthquake
The 2020 Sparta earthquake was a relatively uncommon intraplate earthquake that occurred near the small town of Sparta, North Carolina, on August 9, 2020 at 8:07 am local time. The earthquake had a moment magnitude of 5.1, and a shallow depth of . Shaking was reported throughout the Southern, Midwestern, and Northeastern United States. It was the strongest earthquake recorded in North Carolina in 104 years, the second-strongest in the state's history, and the largest to strike the East Coast since the 2011 Virginia earthquake. Geology The earthquake occurred near the Piedmont region and Blue Ridge Mountains, part of the eastern Appalachian Mountain range which formed due to an ancient continental collision with the African Plate roughly 480 million years ago during the Ordovician period. Many thrust faults were formed during this time as the mountain grew in size. When Pangea broke up, the uplift of the Appalachians ultimately ceased, leading to increased erosion rates ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Eastern Daylight Time
The Eastern Time Zone (ET) is a time zone encompassing part or all of 23 states in the eastern part of the United States, parts of eastern Canada, the state of Quintana Roo in Mexico, Panama, Colombia, mainland Ecuador, Peru, and a small portion of westernmost Brazil in South America, along with certain Caribbean and Atlantic islands. Places that use: * Eastern Standard Time (EST), when observing standard time (autumn/winter), are five hours behind Coordinated Universal Time ( UTC−05:00). * Eastern Daylight Time (EDT), when observing daylight saving time (spring/summer), are four hours behind Coordinated Universal Time ( UTC−04:00). On the second Sunday in March, at 2:00 a.m. EST, clocks are advanced to 3:00 a.m. EDT leaving a one-hour "gap". On the first Sunday in November, at 2:00 a.m. EDT, clocks are moved back to 1:00 a.m. EST, thus "duplicating" one hour. Southern parts of the zone (Panama and the Caribbean) do not observe daylight saving time ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


African Plate
The African Plate is a major tectonic plate that includes much of the continent of Africa (except for its easternmost part) and the adjacent oceanic crust to the west and south. It is bounded by the North American Plate and South American Plate to the west (separated by the Mid-Atlantic Ridge); the Arabian Plate and Somali Plate to the east; the Eurasian Plate, Aegean Sea Plate and Anatolian Plate to the north; and the Antarctic Plate to the south. Between and , the Somali Plate began rifting from the African Plate along the East African Rift. Since the continent of Africa consists of crust from both the African and the Somali plates, some literature refers to the African Plate as the Nubian Plate to distinguish it from the continent as a whole. Boundaries The western edge of the African Plate is a divergent boundary with the North American Plate to the north and the South American Plate to the south which forms the central and southern part of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The A ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Focal Mechanism
The focal mechanism of an earthquake describes the deformation in the source region that generates the seismic waves. In the case of a fault-related event it refers to the orientation of the fault plane that slipped and the slip vector and is also known as a fault-plane solution. Focal mechanisms are derived from a solution of the moment tensor for the earthquake, which itself is estimated by an analysis of observed seismic waveforms. The focal mechanism can be derived from observing the pattern of "first motions", that is, whether the first arriving P waves break up or down. This method was used before waveforms were recorded and analysed digitally and this method is still used for earthquakes too small for easy moment tensor solution. Focal mechanisms are now mainly derived using semi-automatic analysis of the recorded waveforms. Moment tensor solutions The moment tensor solution is typically displayed graphically using a so-called ''beachball'' diagram. The pattern of en ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


2020 Sparta Earthquake (USGS) DYFI Responses
The 2020 Sparta earthquake was a relatively uncommon intraplate earthquake that occurred near the small town of Sparta, North Carolina, on August 9 at 08:07 ET. The thrust-faulting earthquake had a moment magnitude of 5.1, and a shallow depth of . Rupture occurred on the previously unmapped Little River Fault. Shaking was reported in parts of the Midwestern, and Southeastern United States. It was the strongest earthquake recorded in North Carolina in 104 years, the second-strongest in the state's history, and the largest to strike the East Coast since the 2011 Virginia earthquake. A surface rupture was documented following the earthquake; the first of its kind in the Eastern United States. Earthquake Measuring 5.1, it was the state's largest earthquake since a magnitude 5.2 earthquake struck Skyland in 1916. Over 80,000 people reported shaking from the earthquake. Tectonic setting The earthquake occurred near the Piedmont region and Blue Ridge Mountains, part of the eas ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

WLOS
WLOS (channel 13) is a television station licensed to Asheville, North Carolina, United States, broadcasting American Broadcasting Company, ABC and MyNetworkTV programming to Western North Carolina and Upstate South Carolina. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, which provides certain services to Anderson, South Carolina–licensed Dabl affiliate WMYA-TV (channel 40) under a local marketing agreement (LMA) with Cunningham Broadcasting. However, Sinclair effectively owns WMYA as the majority of Cunningham's stock is owned by the family of deceased group founder Julian Smith. Both stations share studios on Technology Drive (near Interstate 26, I-26/U.S. Route 74, US 74) in Asheville, while WLOS' transmitter is located on Mount Pisgah (mountain in North Carolina), Mount Pisgah in Haywood County, North Carolina. History Early years The station first sign-on and sign-off, signed on the air on September 18, 1954, originally broadcasting at 316,000 watts. It was founded by the Skyway ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Eastern Tennessee Seismic Zone
The Eastern Tennessee Seismic Zone (ETSZ), also known as the East Tennessee Seismic Zone and the Southern Appalachian Seismic Zone, is a geographic band stretching from northeastern Alabama to southwestern Virginia that is subject to frequent small earthquakes. The ETSZ is one of the most active earthquake zones in the eastern United States. Earthquake magnitude Most earthquakes in the ETSZ are small and are detected only with instruments. A few damaging earthquakes have occurred in the ETSZ; the largest historic earthquakes measured 4.6 magnitude, occurring in 1973 near Knoxville, Tennessee and April 29, 2003 near Fort Payne, Alabama. Earthquakes large enough to be felt occur approximately once a year in the ETSZ. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that earthquakes as large as magnitude 7.5 are possible in the ETSZ. Events of magnitude 5–6 are estimated to occur once every 200 to 300 years. Seismic source The source of seismic activity in the ETSZ is not known. The ETSZ is lo ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Gulf Of Mexico
The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an oceanic basin, ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States; on the southwest and south by the Mexico, Mexican States of Mexico, states of Tamaulipas, Veracruz, Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatan, and Quintana Roo; and on the southeast by Cuba. The Southern United States, Southern U.S. states of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida, which border the Gulf on the north, are often referred to as the "Third Coast" of the United States (in addition to its Atlantic and Pacific Ocean, Pacific coasts). The Gulf of Mexico took shape approximately 300 million years ago as a result of plate tectonics.Huerta, A.D., and D.L. Harry (2012) ''Wilson cycles, tectonic inheritance, and rifting of the North American Gulf of Mexico continental margin.'' Geosphere. 8(1):GES00725.1, first p ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe and Asia from the "New World" of the Americas in the European perception of the World. The Atlantic Ocean occupies an elongated, S-shaped basin extending longitudinally between Europe and Africa to the east, and North and South America to the west. As one component of the interconnected World Ocean, it is connected in the north to the Arctic Ocean, to the Pacific Ocean in the southwest, the Indian Ocean in the southeast, and the Southern Ocean in the south (other definitions describe the Atlantic as extending southward to Antarctica). The Atlantic Ocean is divided in two parts, by the Equatorial Counter Current, with the North(ern) Atlantic Ocean and the South(ern) Atlantic Ocean split at about 8°N. Scientific explorations of the A ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Mountain Formation
Mountain formation refers to the geological processes that underlie the formation of mountains. These processes are associated with large-scale movements of the Earth's crust (List of tectonic plates, tectonic plates). Fold (geology), Folding, Fault (geology), faulting, Volcano, volcanic activity, igneous intrusion and metamorphism can all be parts of the Orogeny, orogenic process of mountain building. The formation of mountains is not necessarily related to the structural geology, geological structures found on it. The understanding of specific landscape features in terms of the underlying tectonics, tectonic processes is called ''geomorphology, tectonic geomorphology'', and the study of geologically young or ongoing processes is called ''neotectonics''. From the late 18th century until its replacement by plate tectonics in the 1960s, geosyncline, geosyncline theory was used to explain much mountain-building. Types of mountains There are five main types of mountains: volcani ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Seafloor Spreading
Seafloor spreading or Seafloor spread is a process that occurs at mid-ocean ridges, where new oceanic crust is formed through volcanic activity and then gradually moves away from the ridge. History of study Earlier theories by Alfred Wegener and Alexander du Toit of continental drift postulated that continents in motion "plowed" through the fixed and immovable seafloor. The idea that the seafloor itself moves and also carries the continents with it as it spreads from a central rift axis was proposed by Harold Hammond Hess from Princeton University and Robert Dietz of the U.S. Naval Electronics Laboratory in San Diego in the 1960s. The phenomenon is known today as plate tectonics. In locations where two plates move apart, at mid-ocean ridges, new seafloor is continually formed during seafloor spreading. Significance Seafloor spreading helps explain continental drift in the theory of plate tectonics. When oceanic plates diverge, tensional stress causes fractures to occur in th ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Pangaea
Pangaea or Pangea () was a supercontinent that existed during the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic eras. It assembled from the earlier continental units of Gondwana, Euramerica and Siberia during the Carboniferous approximately 335 million years ago, and began to break apart about 200 million years ago, at the end of the Triassic and beginning of the Jurassic. In contrast to the present Earth and its distribution of continental mass, Pangaea was centred on the equator and surrounded by the superocean Panthalassa and the Paleo-Tethys Ocean, Paleo-Tethys and subsequent Tethys Ocean, Tethys Oceans. Pangaea is the most recent supercontinent to have existed and the first to be reconstructed by geologists. Origin of the concept The name "Pangaea" is derived from Ancient Greek ''pan'' (, "all, entire, whole") and ''Gaia (mythology), Gaia'' or Gaea (, "Mother goddess, Mother Earth, land"). The concept that the continents once formed a contiguous land mass was hypothesised, with ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]