Last week, from April 24 onwards, a handful of earthquakes rumbled throughout Kodiak Archipelago communities.
According to the Alaska Earthquake Center, based at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, two separate 4.5 magnitude earthquakes occurred within 45 miles of Kodiak on two consecutive days, April 24 & 25.
Dozens of residents reported feeling the 4.5 magnitude earthquake that hit 43 miles east of Kodiak at 7:14 a.m. on April 24 according to social media posts and the center’s report page.
Those quakes were part of about ten that struck around Kodiak Island within the last five days. But Alaska as a whole has reported 10,365 earthquakes so far this year according to the Alaska Earthquake Center.
Heather McFarlin, a seismologist and seismic data manager with the center, said this recent frequency of earthquakes is not anything out of the ordinary.
“I wouldn’t say that these are abnormal, I wouldn’t say these are cause for concern," McFarlin said. "In the moment they can be startling and that’s expected. We live in earthquake country, we’re one of the most seismically active states in the country, and so we expect these kinds of things.”
McFarlin said the center expects earthquakes to continue around Kodiak Island, the Aleutian Arc, Alaska Peninsula and Cook Inlet, where the Pacific Plate is subducting underneath the North American Plate, in an area referred to as the Aleutian-Alaska Wadati-Benioff Zone.
McFarlin said sometimes 4.5 magnitude earthquakes two days in a row could be tremors ahead of a bigger earthquake. But other times not. Scientists don’t have the tools to predict earthquakes at this point in time.
“Statistically, it’s a very low chance but this could be foreshocks to something. But I wouldn’t say, ‘yes, there is going to be another, bigger event,'" she said.
Aside from the two 4.5 magnitude earthquakes, a 3.3 shook 12 miles south of Larsen Bay early Friday morning on 3:13 a.m., followed by a 2.5 earthquake in the same area Saturday evening at 11:41 p.m. on April 26 and then a 2.1 magnitude quake 19 miles northwest of Port Lions on Sunday, April 27. The Alaska Earthquake Center also recorded a 1.6 magnitude earthquake five miles west of Karluk around 12:59 a.m. on April 28.
McFarlin recommends that if anyone feels an earthquake around Kodiak Island that they report that information to the center by going online to earthquake.alaska.edu, and fill out a “did you feel it? report."
