Photo: USGS
The United States Geological Survey shared and removed a report of a 5.9-magnitude earthquake within a 30-minute span on Thursday (December 4).
The earthquake was reported to have struck near Dayton, Nevada, at 8:06 a.m. local time and was reported to have a depth of nearly five miles. The post was then deleted as of 8:20 a.m. local time, with the USGS confirming that it was investigating the situation in a post shared on its ShakeAlert X account.
"@USGS #ShakeAlert confirms that the earthquake alerts that were delivered at 8:06am are cancelled. There was no M5.9 earthquake near Carson City, NV. We are currently looking into why the alerts were issued. We'll provide more information when we learn more @Cal_OES @CAGeoSurvey," the post states.
Christie Rowe, the director of the Nevada Seismological Laboratory at the University of Nevada, Reno, also confirmed that no seismic activity actually occurred Thursday morning, claiming the automatic detection system alerted to the quake, which led to alerts being triggered that may have been received on cell phones. Rowe added that she was waiting for more information from the USGS to confirmed what triggered the initial alert.
EarthquakeTrack.com also reported that there were zero earthquakes in Dayton during the past 24 hours. The area has, however, had two reported within the past seven days, nine in the past 30 days and 700 in the last year, according to the website.
Earthquakes measured between 2.5 and 5.4 magnitude can be felt by a large population, however, rarely results in much damage, according to Michigan Tech via the Sacramento Bee. Alaska is among the states where earthquakes are most commonly reported in the U.S., along with California, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington, as well as the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.
An estimated 500,000 detectable earthquakes are reported worldwide annually, however, around 100,000 are felt and only 100 typically result in serious damage. Officials strongly advise that anyone caught in an earthquake should drop, cover and hold on, according to the Sacramento Bee.