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Minor 2.39‑Magnitude Earthquake Recorded Near Lafayette, Georgia; No Felt Reports

A magnitude 2.39 earthquake struck near Lafayette, northwest Georgia, at about 6:00 a.m., at a depth of roughly 5.5 km (3.4 miles), according to the USGS. As of Sunday afternoon, no reports of people feeling the tremor had been submitted. The event occurred within the Eastern Tennessee seismic zone, a region of frequent but typically small quakes; many faults there are buried and poorly understood, making exact sources hard to identify.

03:05 PM, 11/24/2025Science
Minor 2.39‑Magnitude Earthquake Recorded Near Lafayette, Georgia; No Felt Reports

A small earthquake with a magnitude of 2.39 was recorded near Lafayette in northwest Georgia at about 6:00 a.m. on Sunday, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) reported. The event occurred roughly 83 miles northwest of Atlanta at a depth of approximately 5.5 kilometers (about 3.4 miles).

By Sunday afternoon the USGS had received no public reports of anyone feeling the tremor.

Seismic context

The quake occurred within the Eastern Tennessee seismic zone, one of the more active seismic regions in the southeastern United States. Although the zone experiences frequent small earthquakes, it is not known for large events. The largest recorded quake in the zone was a magnitude 4.6 near Fort Payne, Alabama, in 2003.

Earthquakes in the central and eastern U.S. are generally felt across a wider area than similar quakes in the West. For example, a magnitude 4.0 earthquake in this region can often be felt up to about 60 miles from its epicenter, while a magnitude 5.5 event can be noticeable as far as 300 miles away.

Why faults are hard to pin down

The Eastern Tennessee seismic zone contains numerous faults, many of which are deeply buried and not easily detected at the surface. Unlike well-mapped plate-boundary faults such as California’s San Andreas, the specific fault that produces a given quake here is often unknown. Much of the bedrock in eastern Tennessee formed hundreds of millions of years ago during the uplift that created the Appalachian Mountains, and identifying which faults remain active can be difficult, the USGS says.

If you felt this event or notice any damage, you can report it to the USGS’s “Did You Feel It?” system to help scientists better map where the shaking was felt.

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