Dozens of aftershocks in wake of Montana earthquake
Posted Jul 6, 2017 12:46 pm.
Last Updated Jul 6, 2017 1:10 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Dozens of relatively minor aftershocks continue to roll through central Montana following an earthquake overnight measuring 5.8 on the Richter Scale.
The quake was centred near Lincoln, about 500 kilometres south of Calgary.
Camille Brillon, seismologist with Natural Resources Canada told 660NEWS there is still a lot of seismic activity in the area Thursday.
“There’s been 15 aftershocks located that are about a magnitude 3.0 and above since the main shock last night,” Brillon said. “I expect they probably will continue for a while, but getting smaller as time goes on.”
The earthquake caused some minor shaking in Calgary just after midnight. Many people awoke to rattling windows.
Brillon said that unlike the west coast, earthquakes are a pretty unusual occurrence on this side of the Rockies.
“They aren’t common, they don’t happen as often or as frequent as they do on the west coast,” she said. “But earthquakes do happen in that area as was shown last night. Within 300 kilometres of that epicentre there’s been 16 magnitude 5.0-plus earthquakes in the past 100 years.”
