“Last night at 9:19 p.m. we detected an earthquake 76 km north east of Cranbrook,” said Dr. Honn Kao, Research Seismologist with Geological Survey of Canada. “And our seismic records indicate that this was a very shallow earthquake.”
The 2.9 magnitude earthquake registered a depth of five kilometres and was felt by residents in Elkford and Sparwood.
The epicentre area of this particular event is not considered to be extremely active although researchers have observed a few more earthquakes with a magnitude of between two and three since the year 2000. The occurrence of earthquakes in that particular area is certainly not very often.
Based on historical records very large earthquakes do not occur in this general area,” said Kao. "Generally speaking, the interior of the continent has a slower accumulation rate of tectonic stress."
There were no reports of damage of injury caused by the quake.