Quake shakes under the lake

An earthquake that struck five kilometres under Lake Erie Friday morning “sounded like an explosion,” said a Wainfleet resident who lives near the epicenter of the tremor.

“It scared both my daughter and I, and had us running outside to look for damage or smoke. It felt like a explosion and it shook the house,” said Judi Rock.

She hadn’t had a chance to check for damage as she was working on video calls from home.

Earthquakes Canada seismologist Stephen Halchuk said the quake struck with a magnitude of 2.7 on the Richter Scale — a scale of numbers used to tell the size of earthquakes. It took place at 7:04 a.m. about 10 kilometres southwest of Port Colborne, and at a depth of five kilometres.

From co-ordinates provided on Earthquakes Canada’s website, it took place offshore, and just slightly east, of Morgan’s Point in Wainfleet, where Rock has lived for the past two years.

It’s not the first time Rock has felt the earth rumble.

“I was in Mississauga, probably 17 years ago, at work and a earthquake hit. This felt similar to that, but louder here I guess because of the waters ability to amplify sound,” she said.

Dr. Jeff Remington, who lives a few kilometres away from Morgan’s Point, said he too felt the quake.

“Initially, I thought it was thunder as the sky was getting dark or maybe a dump truck unloading somewhere close by,” said Remington.

He said there was a big bang and then five to six seconds of shaking and rattling.

“It was much like the quake we felt in Port Colborne about 20 years ago,” Remington said.

Halchuk said Friday’s earthquake was detected by a monitoring device located in Effingham. Earthquakes Canada falls under the federal agency Natural Resources Canada and records earthquakes from seismographs located across the nation. Seismographs record vibrations created by sudden movement in the Earth’s crust.

“There is a scattering of low level activity at the western end of Lake Ontario that extends into Lake Erie as well. It’s not unusual,” said Halchuk of the earthquake.

“There are five to 10 a year at most and are typically this size or smaller. No one is reported as having felt it as yet. It’s just on the threshold where I’d expect people to notice it.”

He said people might have mistaken it for a large truck rumbling by or thunder. There were small storms in the area Friday morning that were producing thunder.

Even though it occurred under the lake, Halchuk said there would be no tsunami-type effect on the shoreline in the area.

“This is small magnitude,” he said of the tremor.

A tsunami would be created by an earthquake with a magnitude of 7 … a giant event, he said. It would also be in an area where the boundary plates are moving up and down. He said the area isn’t that active.

“It’s in the middle of the North American plate, one of the largest tectonic plates that makes up the Earth’s crust. The plate moves very slowly, about as fast as your fingernails grow … about five centimetres a year.”

Halchuk said anyone who believes they felt the earthquake can head to the agency’s website and report it online at www.earthquakescanada. nrcan.gc.ca/dyfi-lavr/known-connu-en.php