You most certainly didn't notice it but it happened.
Hurricane Irma making landfall in Florida and the North Korea nuclear test on Sept. 3 were seismic events that rattled the ground slightly in Alabama. The magnitude 8.1 earthquake off the western coast of Mexico on Sept. 7 also sent a shimmer into the Deep South.
Steve Jones is an amateur seismologist in Heflin in northeast Alabama and said he has always been fascinated with how events across the world can be detected with instruments. His seismograph and other instruments are, he said, "home-brewed," and his findings are posted on his website.
"That's the very reason I enjoy the hobby," he said. "I told someone years ago that even as an amateur seismologist, I've never really gotten over the wow factor."
While earthquakes and even hurricanes are commonly detected by seismographs, the nuclear test in North Korea was not so common.
"Hardly ever," Jones said when asked how often manmade events are detected across the globe. "This got a lot of attention in the press because it was so large. Usually, you won't see an explosion like that of that magnitude that's recordable on the other side of the world. That was a very large event. It was measured by seismologists all over the world. Normally, you won't see something man-made register on seismographs on the other side of the earth."
It was slight but it yielded a dramatic spike on Jones' seismograph.
"The North Korea event, it was only measured in nanometers as opposed to millimeters or micrometers," he said. "It was very small. No one in Alabama felt anything from the North Korea event. It was so very small, you would never know it."
As for Irma, there was no sudden jolt recorded on the seismograph. Instead, it was a slow, steady progression.
The peak vertical movement of the ground recorded by Jones was "very, very small - less than 3 micrometers."
The giant earthquake off the Mexican coast, however, shook the ground in northeast Alabama by slightly more than a half-inch, Jones said. It's still not enough to be felt by people but it's a reminder that the world is really just one place.
"It's amazing how much energy is in an earthquake to dissipate in these waves," Jones said. "We are all connected on one solid mass and if something happens on the other side, the whole earth will react to it."