A magnitude-3.6 earthquake centered in southeastern Missouri rattled homes in Arkansas as far away as Searcy on Wednesday evening and was felt in five other states.
There were no injuries or damage reported from the tremor, officials said Thursday.
The U.S. Geological Survey reported that the epicenter of the 10:51 p.m. Wednesday earthquake was about 2 miles south of Steele, Mo., and 9 miles northeast of Blytheville.
"This is a relatively significant earthquake on the New Madrid Seismic Zone," said Scott Ausbrooks, geohazards supervisor for the Arkansas Geological Survey. "There are usually two or three [earthquakes] on the zone every day, but most are much smaller."
The New Madrid Seismic Zone is a series of faults that run from southern Indiana to northeast Arkansas. A second jog cuts from southern Missouri and into northwestern Tennessee.
Four of the largest earthquakes in the continental United States happened during the winter of 1811-12, when temblors measuring from 7.0 to 8.1 in magnitude rumbled under northeast Arkansas and the Missouri bootheel.
Wednesday night's quake was the largest recorded in the area in several years, Ausbrooks said.
Geologists measured a magnitude-4.1 earthquake near Blytheville on Feb. 10, 2005, and then a magnitude-4.2 one in the same area on May 1, 2005.
Mississippi County Office of Emergency Management coordinator Joseph Richmond said his office received numerous telephone calls about the shaking Wednesday evening and Thursday morning.
"I'm probably the only person in the area who didn't' feel it," Richmond said. "We had a lot of calls, but no reports of damage.
"I think it rattled people's nerves more than anything," he said.
Mae Scott, a cashier at the Gosnell One-Stop convenience store on Airbase Highway just north of Blytheville, said she didn't feel the ground shaking Wednesday evening.
"What did I miss?" she asked. "People all around said they felt it, but I didn't. Maybe it went around me."
Scott's daughter-in-law, Ashton Scott, said the shaking moved her couch about a foot from the wall and then back at her Armorel house just east of Blytheville.
"I thought a train had fallen off the tracks near our home," she said. "My husband thought a tree fell on the house next to us."
Thunderstorms had passed through the area earlier Wednesday night, but it was still windy when the earthquake happened, she said.
"It sounded like thunder, and it lasted five or six seconds," she said.
The U.S. Geological Survey originally rated the quake 4.0 in magnitude but lowered that to a magnitude-3.6 reading early Thursday after geologists evaluated it more closely. The fault was 6.2 miles beneath the earth's surface.
In addition to reports from Arkansas and Missouri, geologists received more than 600 notices from people who felt it in Tennessee, Illinois, Mississippi and Kentucky.
"It was felt widespread across Arkansas," Richmond said.
State Desk on 04/03/2015