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In the last 24 hours Texas has felt some shaking of the ground. Three earthquakes were felt near Odessa, Midland and Pecos. All three were in the 2.5-3.0 magnitude.  The Texas Panhandle actually has a very active fault line. Within the state of Texas, the Panhandle is a geographic region with the second highest earthquake risk level.

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Although the exact number of earthquakes that have affected the Texas Panhandle is unknown, nearly 91 percent of known Texas Panhandle earthquakes since 1907 have had Richter scale magnitudes less than 5.0. Only three known earthquakes have had magnitudes at or above 5.0.Geophysics said the activity appears to have occurred in an area that contains fault systems associated with the Amarillo‐Wichita uplift.  The largest known earthquake in the Texas Panhandle had a Richter scale magnitude of 5.4 and occurred on 30 July 1925. More recently in Amarillo the U.S. Geological Survey reported a 4.0 magnitude earthquake Saturday October 18, 2018 at 8:04 a.m. about 9 miles north-northeast of Amarillo.

No known earthquakes in our area have had a magnitude of 6.0 or greater, but there is no guarantee that has never happened since the seismic record is extremely small.  Cliff Frohlich and Scott Davis wrote a book on Texas Earthquakes in 2002 and estimated that an earthquake with a magnitude greater than 6.0 might occur every 300 years in the Texas Panhandle, which could result in serious damage if it occurred near an inhabited location. An earthquake with a magnitude between 5.5 and 6.0 is estimated to occur every 50 to 100 years in the Texas Panhandle. It was 95 years ago that that 5.4 hit Amarillo. Just saying. tick tick tick....

University of Texas Press
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