In June 2024, a number of earthquakes shook the northeast corner of Metro Atlanta, including the Buford and Lake Lanier region of Gwinnett and Hall counties.

More recently, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has detected a few more earthquakes in North Georgia and as well as just over the South Carolina state line.

As of September 3, 2024, magnitude 2.0 to 2.5 earthquakes were detected near Tunnel Hill, Georgia as well as Parksville, South Carolina.

I sat down with Dr. Zhigang Peng, Professor of Geosciences at Georgia Tech, to learn more about the seismic equipment used in their scientific studies throughout Gwinnett and Hall counties since June.

However, it’s possible that Mother Nature may provide a clue for detecting earthquakes as well.

Q: There are wives-tales of dogs, cats, cows, etc perking up before an earthquake. Is that true?

“That’s absolutely true. Imagine your cat or dog could be the “sensor” [sitting on top of the Earth].”

“What they would do is they would first hear the first wave, which is what we call the “primary wave” or “p-wave”. You can only hear the p-wave, which is normally subtle.”

“You may not feel the shaking of the p-wave, but a few seconds later, the s-wave comes, and now the house is shaking and you may pick up that you felt the earthquake, but you saw your animals already starting to go crazy.”

“So it’s likely -- not always -- but it’s possible that sometimes the animals are picking up the p-waves, sometimes they can hear them.”

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