Pair of minor Labor Day quakes detected in Ballard County

A pair of small earthquakes were detected Monday in Ballard County.

The U.S. Geological Survey in Memphis reported that the first tremor was detected at 2:01 p.m. about four miles north of LaCenter and Kevil, just west of the Ballard-McCracken County line.

It had a preliminary magnitude of 2.0, at a depth of 3 miles.

Then just before 8 p.m., a second tremor was detected two miles south of LaCenter. It was a magnitude 1.7 at a depth of 9 miles.

Monday's quakes make it a total of three detected in Ballard County this summer. On July 1, a 1.9 tremor was reported in the Barlow Bottoms between Barlow, Kentucky and Mound City, Illinois.

Quakes of less than a 2.5 magnitude are generally not felt by people.




USGS graphics:  #1 is the local area in Ballard County where the quakes occurred; #2 shows the quakes' relationship to the main body of the New Madrid Fault system.