Earthquake near Chicago

I read this while making my rounds on the news sites this morning:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/02/10/illinois.earthquake/index.html?hpt=T2

It's kind of scary to think about the possibilities given the recent events in Haiti, but at the same time, it makes me want to play I Am Alive. If it ever comes out, that is.

Dude, I totally felt this last night!! It was at 4 in the morning, really weird, that's the second earthquake in 2 years around Chicago.WINDWAKER1

When I hear about events like this it always makes me wonder what's going on underneath my feet. We have sporadic little quakes every few years where I live. You can't feel a majority of them, but every now and then one will shake the house. When I did some research on it, I found out that geologists refer to my area as the East Tennessee Seismic Zone and it's actually a hotspot for faulting and small, frequent slips of the ground. There's not been a whole lot of study on it though. The New Madrid fault zone out west gets most of the attention. I worry about a"Big One" out there activating unknown/undetected faults here. It's scary, but absolutely fascinating.