2.3 Earthquake In Arkansas Sunday, What's The State's Biggest?

There was an earthquake in Arkansas over the weekend, did you feel it? It took place on Sunday, March 3 around 11:09 AM.

The earthquake could be felt from Dell, Blytheville, Paragould to Little Rock, Arkansas. People also reported feeling the quake in Kennett, Missouri.

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The earthquake was reported at a 2.3 magnitude by both the USGS and the earthquake tracker with the epicenter located in Gosnell, Arkansas. Just think, and people feeling it in Little Rock which is almost 150 miles away that's a pretty big earthquake.

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If you felt the tremors then you are asked to report it. You can do that Here.

With the Madrid Fault line in Arkansas, it is no surprise that we experience relatively small earthquakes from time to time but what is the biggest earthquake recorded in Arkansas?

Earthquakes have been recorded in Arkansas as far back as 1811.

Photo by Shefali Lincoln on Unsplash

The biggest by far was the one that started the recordings in Arkansas in 1811 and it was the first earthquake in the New Madrid sequence. It was measured as an XI event but in today's measurements that would be close to a magnitude of 7.2 to 8.2 with the epicenter being in what is now northeast Arkansas.

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It was followed by a 7.4 aftershock the next day. There was a lot of damage but luckily no deaths were reported and minimal property damage due to the area being sparsely populated at the time. These are also known as the strongest earthquakes in the contiguous United States west of the Rocky Mountains ever recorded.

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According to pubs.usgs.gov

Since beginning on January 12, 1982, more than 40,000 events have been recorded. The largest of these was a M4.0 on October 11, 2010

Photo by Dave Goudreau on Unsplash

Let's keep them low on the magnitude scale because the Department of Natural Resources states,

A magnitude 7.6 earthquake in the NMSZ is expected to cause major damage near the fault system in the Missouri Bootheel, northeast Arkansas and western Kentucky and Tennessee.

Keep your fingers crossed that we never see "The Big One".

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