WOODLAWN, Ill. — Residents in southern Illinois outside of St. Louis have experienced five earthquakes since November, the latest striking Thursday night in the midst of severe storms.
The latest earthquake was a 2.3 magnitude that struck northwest of Woodlawn and east of Richview, just over 75 miles east of St. Louis, according to the United States Geological Survey.
The southern Illinois region's recent previous earthquakes include:
- A 2.8 magnitude earthquake in the village of Germantown on March 28.
- A 2.5 magnitude earthquake in the city of Pinckneyville on March 5.
- A 3.1 magnitude earthquake near Standard on Dec. 18.
- A 3.6 magnitude earthquake also near Standard on Nov. 15.
Even though the earthquakes happened relatively close to each other in both physical proximity and timing, Central and Eastern Region Coordinator of the USGS Earthquake Hazards Program Tom Pratt previously told 5 On Your Side that's not exactly out of the ordinary.
"Indeed small earthquakes like these have occurred from time to time in southern Illinois. We thus would not consider them to be 'out of the ordinary'," Pratt said. "Three of them so close in time is a bit unusual, but if earthquakes are distributed randomly in time it is not surprising to get a few closer together than most."
Geologists don't have a good explanation for why the three earthquakes happened in southern Illinois. The area is north of the New Madrid seismic zone where earthquakes have been happening for several thousand years, but Pratt said there is no direct connection between the zone and the recent quakes.
"The chance that these would lead to a larger, damaging earthquake (i.e. are they foreshocks?) is small, but not impossible," Pratt said.
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