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3 earthquakes rattle north Georgia

ATLANTA,None — Most people don't associate earthquakes with Georgia, but the state has been the epicenter of three quakes in just the last week.

The first earthquake hit Dalton on Wednesday, and a pair of earthquakes hit Trion and Dalton again on Sunday, experts told Channel 2's Linda Stouffer.

Julian Gray with the Tellus Science Museum said a fault line running about 3 to 5 miles below the north Georgia mountains shifted in each case.

The first quake in Dalton measured 2.7 on the Richter scale, Sunday morning's quake in Trion measured 1.9 and the second quake in Dalton registered 1.8 on the Richter scale Sunday evening.

Gray said even the strongest quake measured as just a blip on the seismograph at the museum.

"The magnitude 1.8 earthquake, that is very small. Only very sensitive instruments would pick that up unless you were sitting very still in a quiet room you probably wouldn't have felt anything," Gray said.

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Some Dalton residents told Stouffer they definitely felt the strongest tremor.

"I keep waiting for one of these trains to derail so I thought maybe that's what it was," said resident Christopher Smith pointing to a nearby rail yard.  "All of a sudden there was an explosion, sort of like a popping," he told Stouffer.
 
Gray said it's hard to determine if the fault will shift again soon or if it will stay quiet for some time.