This Free Lance-Star article discusses a small earthquake that hit Louisa and surrounding areas.
Why is this important? It is only about 12 miles away from Dominion Energy’s Lake Anna Nuclear Power plant, which was damaged and knocked off-line for about 2 months in the May 2011 earthquake in the same area.
A minor earthquake rumbled early Monday morning near Mineral in Louisa County, the same general area where a much larger and damaging quake struck in 2011. The temblor happened just after 5 a.m. and was measured at 2.7 magnitude, which is considered “a very minor earthquake,” said Don Blakeman, a geophysicist with the USGS’s National Earthquake Information Center. The quake’s epicenter was near Interstate 64, 6.7 miles south of Mineral. Blakeman said it takes at least a magnitude 3.5 earthquake for shaking to occur, and it usually takes at least a 5.0 magnitude quake to cause damage. Monday’s earthquake pales in comparison to the one that struck in 2011. Each level on the Richter scale is 10 times stronger than the previous one, and the 2011 earthquake was a magnitude 5.8.