Nevada has experienced a surge in seismic activity over the past five hours.
The US Geological Survey (USGS) recorded seven earthquakes, the strongest a 3.6-magnitude tremor that struck at 5:44am ET.
The epicenter was Valmy, a small town located along several active fault lines, including the Fairview Peak-Dixie Valley Fault Scarps, the Central Nevada Seismic Belt and the Pleasant Valley Fault, which is capable of producing a quake up to magnitude 7.7.
The swarm was likely driven by tectonic forces along the fault systems of the Basin and Range Province.
NASA explained: 'The Earth's crust in the Basin and Range Province is gradually expanding, cracking into hundreds of faults as it thins.
'Over millions of years, land on one side of the faults rose, forming mountains, while land on the other sank into basins.
'This ongoing activity makes the Basin and Range one of the most seismically active regions in the U.S.'
The earthquakes were shallow, averaging about five miles below the surface. Shallow quakes pose a greater risk of strong shaking than deeper tremors, as the energy from the earthquake reaches the surface more directly.
Geologists have pointed to the Basin and Range as the culprit for such earthquake swarms.
The Basin and Range Province near Valmy, Nevada, is a geologically active region characterized by alternating north-south mountain ranges and valleys formed through extensive crustal stretching over the past 23 million years.
The crust in this area is relatively thin, averaging about 19 to 22 miles thick, and has undergone lateral extension of roughly 37 to 186 miles since the Early Miocene.
This extension has created hundreds of normal faults, causing blocks of the crust to either rise into mountains or sink into basins.
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