Temblor felt in Arkansas, 4 other states; no damage

Sherry Gillon thought a heavy garbage truck was striking the Parkin Flash Market on Monday morning when the ground began shaking.

“The garbage truck runs on Mondays,” said Gillon, who works at the U.S. 64 convenience store in the Cross County town. “I thought it was really heavy this morning.”

Instead, the shaking was caused by a 3.9-magnitude earthquake centered about five miles southwest of Parkin. Geologists report that the quake, which rumbled at 7:39 a.m., was felt in Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee.

Officials reported no injuries or damage, said Sharika Light, a Parkin City Hall supervisor.

The tremor was centered near the Ware community, about nine miles east of Wynne, said Gary Patterson, a seismologist with the Center for Earthquake Research and Information in Memphis.

“We’re expecting to see minor aftershocks in the days and weeks to come,” he said.

The epicenter was 14.4 miles beneath the surface, he said. It’s the second-deepest earthquake ever recorded in Arkansas by the center’s seismic instruments, Patterson said.

Geologists recorded a 4.1magnitude on May 1, 2005, in Blytheville estimated to have been about 18 miles deep. The average depth of an earthquake in eastern Arkansas is 2 to 5 miles deep.

“It’s interesting,” Patterson said. “The fault is deeper. It means it must be a bigger fault to have been felt in so many areas.”

Scientists were unsure whether the temblor occurred along the southern edge of the New Madrid Seismic Zone or along another one of several fault systems that cut through eastern Arkansas.

The New Madrid Seismic Zone runs from southern Indiana to northeast Arkansas and was the site of three of the largest earthquakes in continental U.S. history in December 1811 and January 1812.

Another system that spawned large, prehistoric quakes is the Meeman-Shelby Fault, which runs from Memphis west into Lee County.

Patterson said there is no correlation between Monday’s quake near Parkin and natural gas drilling farther west in the state. Hundreds of small earthquakes that rattled Faulkner and Conway counties the past two years were the results of natural gas drilling in the area, seismologists have said.

On Monday, Arkansans felt the earthquake from Batesville to Mammoth Spring. Elsewhere, people reported feeling it in Memphis and as far south as Senatobia, Miss.

Several also noted hearing a loud “boom” after the shaking. Patterson said the noise was probably the result of rapid seismic waves breaking the sound barrier.

Video from surveillance cameras at gasoline pumps at the Parkin Flash Market captured the ground’s movement, Gillon said. A van pulled up to a pump Monday morning and as the driver began fueling his vehicle, the van began shaking, she said.

“I was shocked,” Gillon said. “Stuff was shaking behind me on the shelves and the gas pumps shut down.

“It scared me,” she said. “It took me a few seconds to collect my thoughts, and then I realized it was an earthquake.”