UPDATE: Rare seismic event strikes Lenoir County

FINAL UPDATE

DEEP RUN — It wasn’t thunder, it wasn’t a quarry blast or an attempt to blow up beaver dams.

Seven seconds after 7:04 a.m. Monday, the earth let loose thousands of years of tension in a 2.1 magnitude earthquake. The quake epicenter was within yards of the intersection of Sandy Foundation Road and Heber Smith Street, near U.S. 258 South in the Deep Run area of Lenoir County.

The U.S. Geological Survey reported the quake came from approximately 3.1 miles underground.

Kay Lindorff was visiting her parents at a house near the epicenter.

“It was around 7 o’clock, and I heard a boom and the house kind of shook,” Lindorff said. “I thought maybe it was thunder or something exploded somewhere. But, that was basically it. I looked out the window and everything seemed to be OK, and I thought, ‘That was weird.’”

Ashley Ledford lives in the area and thought it was a storm at first.

“I was just about to get out of the bed, and I heard what was like a thunder sound, and then I felt shaking — even the ceiling fan was making a noise,” Ledford said.

And considering the mild nature of the quake, for some it didn’t cause much concern.

“I thought it was thunder, so I rolled over and went back to bed,” area resident Vicki Wessell said.

Earthquakes in Eastern North Carolina are rare, as the region is called a “stable continent region.” According to State Geologist Kenneth Taylor, the last recorded earthquake in the area came 19 years ago.

“There are lots of fractures in the earth in lots of places, and it takes a lot of time for the stress to build up to where you could have an earthquake,” Taylor said. “For example, when you look at earthquake history in Eastern North Carolina — let’s say everywhere east of Raleigh — the last time we had an earthquake in the coastal plain was in 1994.

“That was a magnitude 3.8 in Pamlico County.”

During the time between that quake and this one, more recording stations have been established, so scientists know when there’s a legitimate earthquake and when it may be recorded as a false positive.

“There’s a lot of good data on this magnitude 2.1, because the closest station to it was about 13 kilometers — about seven, eight miles away — at Cliffs of the Neuse State Park,” Taylor said.

Brett McLaurin, a professor at Bloomsburg University in Pennsylvania, studied the area in Lenoir County known as the Graingers wrench zone. He’s sought to acquire funding for future study and believes, though has yet to document evidence, a “geologically young” fault runs from Kinston to Pink Hill.

McLaurin said the perceived fault area runs along the Neuse River northeast as it parallels N.C. 11, then curves east past Graingers.

“I always thought there was a risk of it, so this earthquake (Monday) confirmed our thinking,” McLaurin said.

Taylor said the result is likely from fractures in the earth’s crust reacting to thousands of years of pressure.

“This reminds us that the earth creaks and moans every once in a while,” Taylor said.

Wes Wolfe can be reached at 252-559-1075 or Wes.Wolfe@Kinston.com. Follow him on Twitter @WolfeReports.

FIRST REPORT

A 2.1 magnitude earthquake was registered in Lenoir County this morning at 7:04 a.m., 8 miles SSW of Kinston. The Free Press will have a full story on this later.

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