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                   Wednesday, April 7, 2010 - 10:54PM CDT

Another West Virginia earthquake report - magnitude 3.4

By DAN ROBINSON
Editor/Photographer
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USGS DATA: Recent US Earthquakes Map

(I missed noticing this on Sunday, due to being intensely involved in monitoring/covering the severe weather situation in the Midwest for the past several days.) The USGS earthquake site has another quake registered for West Virginia, this time in Braxton County on Sunday, April 4 at 5:19AM. This was a 3.4 magnitude event - still a weak quake, but one that would have been easily felt at the surface near the epicenter. The USGS site had 15 felt reports near the epicenter, which was registered just south of Interstate 79, about halfway between the Frametown and Servia Road exits. This would place it very close to the Servia rest area on I-79 (here is a Google Map of the plot).

This event comes 11 days after the 2.9 magnitude event centered between Williamson and Oceana on March 27, and only a day before the mine explosion tragedy near Whitesville on Monday. The March 27 incident was later determined to be related to a deep mine collapse or blast event. None of the three events are apparently related in any way.

I am very familiar with the areas along the I-79 corridor, and I do not know of any coal mines near the area where the April 4 quake occured. The closest mines (either active or abandoned) I know of would be near Cowen, WV in Webster County (far to the east) and near Lost Creek just south of Clarksburg (far to the north).

I'll update this blog post if new information about this event comes in.

The fact there was a second quake in such a short period of time makes me believe the March 27 must have been a real quake and not a mining event. It's kind of strange there would be a mining disaster just a day after the latest quake. Makes me wonder if these things are related.
- Posted by mike

Has there been any new development?
- Posted by Richard Pollack from Wheeling

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