Georgia · Calhoun, Gordon County · Missing & Alerts

Gordon County GA Earthquake: 2.4 Magnitude Quake Recorded Near Calhoun, Resaca and John’s Mountain

A small earthquake was recorded before dawn Saturday in the wooded country between Resaca and Calhoun. The U.S. Geological Survey put the magnitude at 2.4 and the depth at about 5.8 miles, and had recorded no felt reports.

By Kate Thompson Published Aug. 22, 2026, 10:38 a.m. ET 8 min read Magnitude 2.4

What happened in Gordon County?

An earthquake was recorded before dawn Saturday beneath a rural stretch of northwest Georgia, in the ridge country between Resaca and Calhoun.

The U.S. Geological Survey logged a magnitude 2.4 quake at about 4:54 a.m. ET on Aug. 22 in Gordon County. The reviewed record puts the figure more precisely at 2.41.

The quake was shallow. USGS placed it 9.35 kilometers down, roughly 5.8 miles below the surface.

No felt reports had been recorded for the event. Atlanta News First, which reported the quake Saturday morning, noted that earthquakes below magnitude 2.5 are considered minor and may not be felt.

The origin time is stamped 08:54:15 UTC, which is 4:54:15 in the morning in Georgia. The magnitude type on the record is md, duration magnitude.

Where exactly was the epicenter?

At 34.6117° N, 85.0477° W, which USGS describes as 10 kilometers — about 6.2 miles — west-northwest of Resaca.

Atlanta News First placed the same point roughly nine miles northwest of Calhoun, inside the John’s Mountain Wildlife Management Area. Measured from the published coordinates, Calhoun sits 9.3 miles away, so the two descriptions land on the same ground.

That ground is state wildlife land rather than a town. The coordinates fall inside Gordon County, on a tract the state manages across several county lines.

The nearest sizable population centers are all some distance off. Dalton lies 11.8 miles from the epicenter and LaFayette 14.8 miles.

Chatsworth is 19 miles out and Summerville 19.4 miles. Rome sits 25.4 miles to the southwest, and Atlanta is 70.5 miles to the southeast.

Resaca is by some way the closest town. Dalton and Rome are the nearest cities of any size, and both are a drive.

The location phrase USGS attached to the event — 10 km WNW of Resaca — is one the agency has used before for quakes at this same spot.

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Did anyone report feeling it?

USGS had recorded no felt reports for the Gordon County quake.

That is a statement about the agency’s record rather than about the ground. Its public reporting system depends on people submitting accounts, and an epicenter under wildlife management land before five in the morning gives that system little to work with.

The contrast with earlier local quakes is sharp. A magnitude 2.94 event northeast of Eton in 2022 drew 676 reports, at a size not far above Saturday’s.

An absent report is also not a measurement. The instruments recorded the event with enough precision for the agency to finalize a magnitude and a depth; the felt-report tally is a separate, human-supplied layer that either fills in or does not.

Whether anyone in Gordon County or the counties around it felt shaking, and whether anything was damaged, are open questions.

How strong is a 2.4 magnitude earthquake?

Small — though the scale is steeper than it looks, because magnitude is logarithmic rather than linear.

Each whole number increase in magnitude is a tenfold increase in the amplitude measured on a seismogram, USGS says, and represents about 32 times more energy release.

So a magnitude 3.4 at the same spot would have swung the instruments ten times as far as Saturday’s quake did, and a 4.4 a hundred times as far. The gap in energy released widens faster still.

For scale at the upper end, the same agency calls a magnitude 5.3 a moderate earthquake and a magnitude 6.3 a strong one. Neither is anywhere near what northwest Georgia recorded before dawn.

Set against the local record, the arithmetic is unforgiving in the other direction too. The 2.94 recorded near Eton in 2022 and the 3.9 near Stillmore that same year both sit above Saturday’s event on that same logarithmic ladder, and the distance between them is larger than the decimals suggest.

What a 2.41 amounts to in practice is an event that registers cleanly on seismic instruments and, on this occasion, generated no public accounts of shaking.

How often does this corner of Georgia shake?

Often enough that Saturday morning was unremarkable in the record.

The USGS earthquake catalog lists 113 earthquakes of magnitude 1.0 or greater within 50 kilometers — about 31 miles — of Saturday’s epicenter since Jan. 1, 2016.

Three of those 113 entries share a single described location. Two were logged in May 2024 and the third was Saturday’s.

More than a decade of recorded activity, then, scattered across the ridge country of northwest Georgia and just over the Tennessee line.

Has this exact spot produced earthquakes before?

Yes. USGS has described two other earthquakes using the identical location phrase attached to Saturday’s event.

A magnitude 2.33 quake was recorded 10 kilometers west-northwest of Resaca on May 9, 2024. A magnitude 1.99 followed ten days later, on May 19, 2024.

Saturday’s 2.41 is the largest of the three, though only just. All three sit inside the same small patch of northwest Georgia, close enough together that the agency’s location description does not distinguish between them.

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What larger earthquakes has the area recorded?

Several in the past decade, and the larger ones reached people.

The biggest nearby was that magnitude 2.94 on Jan. 21, 2022, centered 16 kilometers north-northeast of Eton. USGS received 676 felt reports on it, the clearest local illustration of how much difference half a point of magnitude makes.

A magnitude 2.69 west of Indian Springs in January 2018 drew 109 reports. A 2.51 south of Tunnel Hill in July 2020 drew 67.

A magnitude 2.58 north of Menlo in February 2025 produced 43 reports, while a slightly larger 2.72 north of Plainville in November 2018 produced only 14. The totals do not line up neatly with magnitude.

Statewide the ceiling is not much higher. The largest earthquake in Georgia in the USGS catalog since 1990 was a magnitude 3.9 near Stillmore on June 18, 2022, which drew 2,355 felt reports.

That is the largest entry in more than three decades of Georgia records, and it still sits well below the level USGS gives as its example of a moderate earthquake.

How did USGS arrive at these numbers?

Not automatically. The Gordon County entry carries a review status of reviewed and an evaluation status of final, meaning an analyst checked the machine solution rather than leaving the first computer estimate to stand.

The location was computed from 27 seismic phase readings gathered at 17 stations. Phases are the individual wave arrivals a station registers, and the more of them arriving from more directions, the tighter the fix on where the movement happened and how deep it was.

The event was contributed by the agency’s southeast network, which is why its identifier opens with the letters se. The full ID is se60627161.

Magnitudes do move. USGS revises them as more station data comes in, and the reviewed-and-final labels are what mark the point at which the agency treats the numbers as settled.

For this event that point has already been reached. The 2.41 magnitude and the 9.35-kilometer depth are the finalized values rather than the preliminary ones an automated system puts out in the first minutes after a quake.

What is “Did You Feel It?”

Did You Feel It? is the USGS system that gathers accounts of shaking from members of the public and converts them into intensity maps.

Instruments measure the energy an earthquake released at its source. Felt reports measure something else entirely — what the shaking did where people actually were, which can differ across a few miles of different ground.

The divergence between the two shows up plainly in the local record. The 2.72 near Plainville in 2018 was the larger event, and the 2.58 near Menlo in 2025 drew three times as many reports.

Those totals — 676 after the Eton quake, 14 after Plainville — come from that system.

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What is John’s Mountain WMA?

John’s Mountain Wildlife Management Area is a state tract in the Armuchee area of northwest Georgia, managed by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.

DNR lists the area across four counties — Gordon, Walker, Whitfield and Floyd. That spread is part of why a single epicenter there can be described by one source as west-northwest of Resaca and by another as northwest of Calhoun.

It is public land, largely forested ridge, and it is the ground Atlanta News First identified as the site of Saturday’s epicenter.

What we don’t know yet

Frequently asked questions

What was the magnitude of the Gordon County earthquake?
USGS recorded a magnitude 2.41, which rounds to 2.4. Atlanta News First reported it as a 2.4 magnitude earthquake.

When did the Gordon County earthquake happen?
At about 4:54 a.m. ET on Saturday, Aug. 22, 2026. USGS records the origin time as 08:54:15 UTC.

Where was the epicenter of the Gordon County earthquake?
At 34.6117 degrees north, 85.0477 degrees west, which USGS describes as 10 kilometers, or about 6.2 miles, west-northwest of Resaca. Atlanta News First placed it about nine miles northwest of Calhoun, in the John's Mountain Wildlife Management Area.

How deep was the Gordon County earthquake?
9.35 kilometers, or about 5.8 miles, according to the reviewed USGS record.

Did anyone feel the Gordon County earthquake?
USGS had recorded no felt reports for the event. Atlanta News First noted that earthquakes below magnitude 2.5 are minor and may not be felt.

Was there any damage from the Gordon County earthquake?
Not established. USGS has recorded no felt reports and no damage assessment.

How strong is a 2.4 magnitude earthquake?
Small. USGS says each whole number increase in magnitude is a tenfold increase in the amplitude measured on a seismogram and represents about 32 times more energy release. For scale, USGS calls a magnitude 5.3 a moderate earthquake and a magnitude 6.3 a strong earthquake.

How often do earthquakes happen near Resaca, Georgia?
The USGS earthquake catalog lists 113 earthquakes of magnitude 1.0 or greater within 50 kilometers, about 31 miles, of Saturday's epicenter since Jan. 1, 2016.

Has an earthquake been recorded at this same spot before?
Yes. USGS logged a magnitude 2.33 on May 9, 2024 and a magnitude 1.99 on May 19, 2024, both described with the same location phrase used Saturday, 10 km WNW of Resaca.

What is the largest earthquake recorded near Gordon County in the past decade?
A magnitude 2.94 on Jan. 21, 2022, centered 16 kilometers north-northeast of Eton. USGS received 676 felt reports on that one.

What is Did You Feel It?
It is the USGS system that collects accounts of shaking from the public and turns them into intensity maps.

What is the USGS event ID for the Gordon County earthquake?
se60627161, contributed by the USGS southeast network. USGS lists the record as reviewed and final, located using 27 seismic phase readings from 17 stations.