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A magnitude 3.0 earthquake rattled the Farmville area Tuesday afternoon, with people as far away as Leesburg, Culpeper and Arlington reporting they felt it, too, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
The quake occurred at 1:08 p.m. in Buckingham County, about 12 miles from Farmville and about 40 miles from Charlottesville.
A USGS shake map for the event showed the temblor was widely felt in the Charlottesville area, with regional responses from as far away as Stafford, Ruther Glen, Arlington and Loudoun County.
The earthquake occurred not far from the Central Virginia Seismic Zone, the same fault line that produced one of the strongest quakes to ever hit the East Coast. The magnitude 5.8 quake in central Virginia in August 2011 produced aftershocks for years.
USGS earthquake experts say temblors on the East Coast are much more widely felt than those west of the Rockies, due to an “older and colder” Earth crust and more mature fault lines.
There were no reports of damage or injuries Tuesday afternoon.
