4.2 Maupin-Area Quake Biggest In 32 Years
The biggest earthquake in an 18-month “swarm” of quakes in the Maupin area shook a wide swath of north-central Oregon late Monday morning, measuring 4.2 on the Richter scale, followed by two more minor temblors within a few minutes, officials said.
The officially labeled “light” earthquake occurred at about 11:46 a.m., seven miles east-southeast of Maupin, at an estimated depth of 13 miles below the Earth’s surface, according to the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network at the University of Washington in Seattle. But it was felt dozens of miles to the south, in Prineville and even Redmond.
“That’s about as big as they come in the Maupin area,” said Jon Connolly, coordinator of the seismology lab.
“That’s definitely the biggest in that area” since a 4.8-magnitude quake hit on April 13, 1976, Connolly said, and also the largest in the swarm of over 300 quakes since January 2007.
“We wouldn’t expect damage,” however, from that size a quake, he told KTVZ.COM – and indeed, none has been reported.
Many residents in the Prineville area, about 50 miles to the south, said they felt their homes or buildings shake, and even a Redmond woman reported feeling the floor shake.
“We’re on the second floor of a two-story brick building, which shook the chairs, the doors,” said Emily Hite, an assistant to two attorneys at Miller Nash’s office on Third Street in Prineville.
“I was in my house, and my whole house shook,” north Prineville resident Nicole Van Alstine said. She said her son was watching TV, and the cable TV, everything shut off in the house briefly.
To the north, the Wasco County Sheriff’s Office reported four calls from people who felt the quake, though no damage was reported.
A “micro-quake” of magnitude 2.0 shook the same area at 11:55 a.m., centered nine miles east-southeast of Maupin and an even smaller one, 1.3 on the Richter scale, about three minutes later.
Coincidentally – and a bit frustratingly – Connolly said he just last week removed an array of five sensitive, portable broadband seismographs that near the “Maupin swarm,” which did measure ground movement with great detail in quakes of up to 3.4 on the Richter scale.
To find these and other recent Northwest quakes, visit http://www.pnsn.org/recenteqs/latest.htm
