Shaken awake early Friday? You may have felt a small quake that struck west of Whatcom
If you got shaken awake before your alarm went off Friday morning, you weren’t alone.
A 3.6-magnitude earthquake struck approximately 25 miles west of the Whatcom County mainland, according to U.S. Geological Survey reports.
The quake, which struck at 4:13 a.m. Friday, Dec. 17, was centered below the eastern edge of Galiano Island below the 49th parallel in British Columbia. The quake was approximately 32 miles north of Victoria, B.C., and Googlemaps places it about 25 miles west of Birch Bay.
Not surprisingly, some of the 576 people who had reported feeling the quake on the USGS’ “Did you Feel It” page as of 7 a.m. were in Whatcom County, including a couple of reports from from Point Roberts, one in Blaine, one in Birch Bay, two on the Lummi Peninsula and one in Bellingham.
But the majority of people reporting feeling it were from Vancouver Island, the Canadian islands just east of Vancouver Island and the San Juan Islands in the U.S.
The quake was measured at a depth of 17.3 kilometers, according to the USGS.
Quakes between magnitude 3.0 and 3.9 are considered minor and are often felt by people, but rarely cause any damage, according to the USGS.
