Lower Mainland Weather Central

[mr.x]

another one today:


Strong 6.1-magnitude earthquake strikes near Queen Charlottes
CanWest News Service
Published: Wednesday, January 09, 2008

A large, 6.1 magnitude earthquake rumbled off coast of the Queen Charlotte Islands Wednesday.

The earthquake occurred in the Pacific Ocean around 6:40 a.m. local time, about 180 kilometres south of Queen Charlotte City.

"It wouldn't be surprising if we got one or two reports of minor shaking," Stephane Mazzotti, a seismologist with the Geological Survey of Canada said Wednesday.

"There wasn't any damage because the earthquake was . . . too far away from any populated place for that."

This was the third earthquake to hit the island region in the past five days.

On Saturday, two earthquakes both measuring in at 6.5 magnitude occurred an hour apart, about 50 kilometers south of Wednesday's earthquake.

Mazzotti said earthquakes are common in the area because it is a "triple junction," a place where three large tectonic plates intersect.

"These plates grind past each other creating a hot spot for earthquakes," he said. "We have earthquakes there all the time. It's a routine event."

Despite the strength of this recent earthquake, an expert said it was not strong enough to trigger a tsunami.

"It was a large earthquake and if it happened on land, it would've been capable of destroying buildings," said Bill Knight, a spokesman with the West Coast Alaska Tsunami Warning Center.

"But from a tsunami perspective, it was not large enough to produce a tsunami."

Usually, a tsunami would only be triggered by an earthquake with a magnitude of seven or higher. Knight said another risk factor is that smaller earthquakes - those within the mid-sixes range - can cause landslides or avalanches that can trigger a tsunami.

B.C.'s largest threat for a tsunami would be a ripple effect if a large enough earthquake were to hit Alaska's remote Aleutian Islands, he added.

If that happened, it would take three to three-and-half hours for the tsunami to reach Canadian soil. The strongest rumble felt in the region was in 1949, with experts recording an earthquake at 8.1 magnitude.