More Than 20 Small Earthquakes Shake Oklahoma Since Friday

On Tuesday afternoon, a 4.5 magnitude earthquake was measured near Shattuck in northwestern Oklahoma.

“It rattled the buildings. I thought something blew up ... it was like an explosion,” Shattuck City Manager Sam Hamilton told the Associated Press.

No damage or injuries have been reported so far. This earthquakes was among the nearly two dozen that have happened in Oklahoma since Friday, and researchers working with the U.S. Geological Survey trying to figure out what's causing them.

There have been 22 earthquakes in the eastern part of the state since Friday, KOCO reported. Most of these have gone unnoticed by the general public because they were too small to feel.

"The largest being slightly over a three in magnitude, and most fell into the two to two-plus range magnitude," Matt Skinner, spokesperson for the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, told the station.

Skinner called the spike in seismic activity "very unusual," even if the tremors aren't causing any immediate damage.

"We take every seismic event very seriously, and we want to see if there's any action that's required on our part," he said.

The state agency similarly looked into a series of small quakes near Covington in February. Certain wastewater disposal wells were told to shut down to prevent future tremors, KJRH previously reported.

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