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The quakes registered as a 2.2 around 1:20 a.m. and a 2.1 around 6:35 a.m. and both were centered just under two miles north, northwest of Marion, the USGS says.
Street View image from Feb. 2025. © 2025 Google
Two earthquakes were recorded within hours of each other near Marion, North Carolina, and witnesses report they felt shaking miles away, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
The quakes registered as a 2.2 around 1:20 a.m. and a 2.1 around 6:35 a.m., and both were centered about two miles north, northwest of the popular tourist town in McDowell County.
Witnesses mostly reported Category III intensity, which is akin to the vibration of a passing truck, experts say. The farthest report came 48 miles east in Taylorsville.
Earthquakes of 2.5 or less are typically not felt by humans, but “soft, loose soil will shake more intensely than hard rock at the same distance from the same earthquake,” the USGS says.
“The looser and thicker the soil is, the greater the energy movement will be,” the department reports.
The mountains of western North Carolina are remnants of ancient tectonic activity dating back hundreds of millions of years, and the region remains “littered with many ancient faults that are no longer active,” according to the Center for Earthquake Research and Information at the University of Memphis.
A search of USGS records dating back to 2000 shows Marion has not had other quakes in the past 25 years.
While the region is considered relatively stable, it remains “under compression” and minor quakes are a result of an ancient fault slipping on occasion, the center reports.
Marion is about a 100-mile drive northwest from uptown Charlotte.
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Mark Price
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