BOONE, N.C. — Seven earthquakes hit North Carolina in just a few weeks, and all of them were centered just outside of Canton.

Scott Marshall, a professor at Appalachian State University, has been studying earthquakes for years and shed light on what has been happening in the mountains. 

“I find it exciting to study something where so much is still unknown,” Scott Marshall said.

          What You Need To Know

  • North Carolina saw seven earthquakes in the last few weeks

  • Appalachian State University Professor Scott Marshall says many are aftershocks

  • Marshall says it's important for everyone to always be prepared

He says they can make long-term predictions by studying ones that have happened already like a recent earthquake in Sparta in 2020. The earthquake created a lot of damage, including the rupture in the ground that went through buildings and the discovery of an active fault line.

“A Magnitude 3 won't do that,” Marshall said. “So many mile deep. It’s a little bit deeper than Sparta events, so it is unlikely that we will see any actual surface rupturing from something so small,” Marshall said.

Marshall is not surprised he is seeing a cluster. He says those are aftershocks. They started on May 5.

Marshall says back in the '70s, there used to be around 50 earthquakes a year. Now, there are around 150. He says this could be because we can detect earthquakes better now and says most of them are not felt by humans.

“If there was a Magnitude 7 in this zone like there was in South Carolina, the fact that we are a couple hundred miles away doesn’t matter. We would shake a lot. Knoxville would shake worse, but we would still have damage,” Marshall said.

He says it is important for people in North Carolina to be prepared.