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World » Magnitude 2.9 - ST. LAWRENCE VALLEY REG., QUEBEC, CANADA

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Magnitude 2.9 - ST. LAWRENCE VALLEY REG., QUEBEC, CANADA

2008 October 02 04:10:24 UTC

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Earthquake Details

Magnitude

2.9

Date-Time

Thursday, October 02, 2008 at 04:10:24 UTC

Thursday, October 02, 2008 at 12:10:24 AM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location

45.215°N, 73.890°W

Depth

2 km (1.2 miles)

Region

ST. LAWRENCE VALLEY REG., QUEBEC, CANADA

Distances

20 km (12 miles) ESE (104°) from Salaberry-de-Valleyfield,
Québec, Canada

20 km (12 miles) SSW (209°) from Châteauguay, Québec,
Canada

27 km (17 miles) SSW (192°) from Pointe Claire, Québec,
Canada

39 km (24 miles) SSW (199°) from Laval, Québec,
Canada

42 km (26 miles) SW (217°) from Montréal, Québec,
Canada

Location
Uncertainty

horizontal +/- 0.2 km (0.1 miles); depth +/- 0.7 km (0.4 miles)

Parameters

NST= 20, Nph= 41, Dmin=37.9 km, Rmss=0.18 sec, Gp=
50°,
M-type=duration magnitude (Md), Version=1

Source

Lamont-Doherty
Cooperative Seismographic Network (LCSN)

Event
ID

ld1022861

This event has been reviewed by a seismologist.

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you feel it? Report shaking and damage at your location. You can
also view a map displaying accumulated data from your report and others.

Earthquake Summary

Tectonic Summary

EARTHQUAKES IN THE WESTERN QUEBEC SEISMIC ZONE
People in the large Western
Quebec seismic zone have felt small earthquakes and suffered damage from larger
ones for three centuries. The two largest damaging earthquakes occurred in 1935
(magnitude 6.1) at the northwestern end of the seismic zone, and in 1732
(magnitude 6.2) 450 km (280 mi) away at the southeastern end of the zone where
it caused significant damage in Montreal. Earthquakes cause damage in the zone
about once a decade. Smaller earthquakes are felt three or four times a year.

Earthquakes east of the Rocky Mountains, although less frequent than in the
west, are typically felt over a much broader region. East of the Rockies, an
earthquake can be felt over an area as much as ten times larger than a similar
magnitude earthquake on the west coast. A magnitude 4.0 eastern earthquake
typically can be felt at many places as far as 100 km (60 mi) from where it
occurred, and it infrequently causes damage near its source. A magnitude 5.5
eastern earthquake usually can be felt as far as 500 km (300 mi) from where it
occurred, and sometimes causes damage as far away as 40 km (25 mi).

FAULTS
Earthquakes everywhere occur on faults within bedrock,
usually miles deep. Most of the bedrock in the Western Quebec seismic zone was
formed as several generations of mountains rose and were eroded down again over
the last billion or so years.

At well-studied plate boundaries like the San Andreas fault system in
California, often scientists can determine the name of the specific fault that
is responsible for an earthquake. In contrast, east of the Rocky Mountains this
is rarely the case. The Western Quebec seismic zone is far from the nearest
plate boundaries, which are in the center of the Atlantic Ocean and in the
Caribbean Sea. The seismic zone is laced with known faults but numerous smaller
or deeply buried faults remain undetected. Even the known faults are poorly
located at earthquake depths. Accordingly, few, if any, earthquakes in the
seismic zone can be linked to named faults. It is difficult to determine if a
known fault is still active and could slip and cause an earthquake. As in most
other areas east of the Rockies, the best guide to earthquake hazards in the
Western Quebec seismic zone is the earthquakes themselves.

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Page Last Modified: October 02, 2008 16:02:22 UTC