ATMORE -- A pair of earthquakes five days apart rattled the rural community of Robinsonville, a Geologic Survey official confirmed Wednesday. They measured 2.9 and 3.3 on the Richter scale and were the area's first temblors since a 4.9 struck in 1997.

"We had earthquakes, no doubt," said Jack Sharpless, whose wife called to report the first quake on Sept. 25 and the stronger one on Monday evening some 70 miles northeast of Mobile. "The house shook. I can't say things shook off the wall like they did in 1997, but I still knew what it was."

Dorothy Raymond, who studies geohazards with the Geologic Survey of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, said sensors recorded both earthquakes. The earthquakes were part of a list of hundreds recorded around the world in the past week, 87 in the United States alone. Most North American earth quakes happen along faults in Alaska, California or Hawaii though they can happen nearly anywhere.

In Escambia County, Raymond said, the quakes start when a fault or faults several miles beneath the surface shift and the resulting motion is felt for several miles.

"We don't know much about it because it is so deep," Raymond said. "We don't know when they will happen -- these could be an earthquake and an aftershock, or a foreshock and an earthquake or two foreshocks preceding a larger quake to come. We just don't know. We might have more or we might not see another for 25 or 100 years." [...]