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Two earthquakes in W. KY, June 19 - 21, 2005

Two small earthquakes occurred at the same general vicinity in Western Kentucky the evening of Sunday, June 19 and the morning of Monday, June 20.

The first one happened just after 9:00 p.m. CDT on June 19  twenty-three miles west-southwest of Paducah, KY, and two miles southwest of Blandville, KY in Ballard County.  Its estimated Richer magnitude was 2.7, and its depth was 9.7 miles below the surface.

The second, larger, earthquake happened a few seconds before 7:22 a.m. on Monday morning, June 20.  The epicenter of this 3.9-magnitude event was located about 23 miles west-southwest of Paducah and 3 miles southwest of Blandville, and it was reported to have happened about 13 miles deep in the Earth.

There were several reports of the second earthquake having been felt and heard at Mayfield, Kentucky, in Graves County.

The graphic below is the actual record of the earthquake made by 10 instruments in the Kentucky Seismic and Strong Motion Network (KSSMN), operated by the Kentucky Geological Survey and the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Kentucky.

For more information on this event, see this USGS site: https://earthquake.usgs.gov/recenteqsUS/Quakes/nm747.htm

If you felt either of these earthquakes, you can file a report with the U. S. Geological Survey at https://pasadena.wr.usgs.gov/shake/cus/index.html and choose event ID 746 (the smaller event on 6/19) or 747 (the larger event of 6/20) and send an e-mail with your report to mike.lynch@uky.edu.

To see real-time recordings of earthquakes from the KSSMN, visit https://www.uky.edu/KGS/earthquake/index.php .

For more information on earthquakes and other geologic hazards affecting Kentucky, see https://www.uky.edu/KGS/geologichazards/