Second largest earthquake to hit Canada since 1949

By Robert On October 28, 2012 · 1 Comment

A violent earthquake measuring 7.7 jolted British Columbia’s north-central coast Saturday night.

Residents near the center of the quake, southwest of Prince Rupert B.C., said the violent jolting lasted for up to a minute, but no injuries or major damage had been reported, says the Vancouver Sun.

Brent Ward, an earth scientist at Simon Fraser University, said the earthquake was the second largest to hit the country since 1949, when another earthquake was recorded in the same area with a magnitude of 8.1.

“It’s an earthquake in an area that gets a lot of earthquakes,” he said. “It’s a tectonically active area.”

Ward said the area is known as the Queen Charlotte fault, where the earth’s plates slide horizontally across each other in a strike-slip action, similar to what happens along California’s San Andreas fault.

The quake was felt as far away as Metro Vancouver and Alaska.

Tsunami warnings, which were issued for coastal areas of B.C. and Alaska and as far away as Hawaii, were cancelled about six hours later.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/10/27/7-7-earthquake-off-west-coast-of-canada-tsunami-warnings-issued/

Thanks to Mike Wurm, Wil Smyth and Laurel for these links

One Response to Second largest earthquake to hit Canada since 1949

Laurel says:

October 29, 2012 at 7:04 am

I wouldnt be too sanguine about it, the aftershocks are ranging from the high 4 to 5.5 and theres a huge number of them showing at the USGS pages.
they dont seem to be tapering down in force .
what had me worried was they failed to put tsunami warnings out to people closer than hawaii..I have a friend up that way on the coast, I called him in the early sunday and he had heard nothing at all on radio or tv about it.