SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - It seems Saturday's re-ported earthquake was actually a man-made explosion to level rock at Con Mine.

The Yellowknife seismic station registered a quake of 1.0 magnitude and was reported as such by Natural Resources Canada.

Scott Stringer, mine manager, said the proper authorities were notified in advance and he was disappointed to see an earthquake report.

"We're not very happy that this has happened, given the fact that we've communicated with all the different regulatory bodies that we're required to," he said.

"As far as I know, everyone who was required to receive the notice had received the notice."

Stringer said he was not sure where the breakdown in communication occurred but he is attempting to find out.

"We are looking at our communications pipeline to see if there are any problems or if there are any changes that need to be made," he said.

Saturday's blast was the first of three or four that will be conducted on a rock outcrop at the mine to ready the site for a future water treatment plant.

From Saturday's explosion Stringer said about 270 holes, the deepest about 14 metres, were blasted using 15,000 kg of explosives.

He said residents were not, and will not be, directly notified of blast times for safety reasons.

"We do have a safety concern when we're doing this type of thing," he said. "We don't want people trying to get onto the site. We just want to make sure we're not putting people at risk by alerting them to something that they don't need to be around here for," he said.

Stringer said it's hoped the next few blasts will be completed by mid-December.

Mayor Gord Van Tighem said there was no question in his mind the earthquake was reported incorrectly.

"Anyone that's lived here for any period of time knew it wasn't a quake," he said.

Van Tighem said there are no recorded earthquakes in Yellowknife thanks to the area's unique geological make-up.

"Seeing as we're sitting in a huge granite basin, we're not really prone to them (earthquakes)," he said

John Cassidy, earthquake scientist with Natural Resources Canada, said a mine blast was capable of registering on the Richter Scale and depending on the depth of the explosion can easily be mistaken for an earthquake by people in the surrounding areas.

"A magnitude one is really tiny," he said, speaking about the explosion. "Certainly it can be felt by people in the immediate area and can be heard, because if it's at the surface it generates an air blast or sound wave that travels out.

"If it's a deeper explosion you would get a rumbling, a ground rolling sensation. That wasn't the case in this event."

He said earthquakes had never been detected in the Yellowknife area.

"There's really been nothing right around Yellowknife," said Cassidy. "The biggest was a magnitude 5 and that was about 300 km from Yellowknife back in the 1920s.

"You certainly have one of the lowest earthquake risks in Canada," he added.

"The reason for that is Yellowknife is located on the very old, very stable rock on what's called the Canadian craton."

He said Yellowknife does have a fault line, however it is unlikely to pose any risk.

"Any geological map will show surface faults but in most cases those faults are hundreds of millions of years old, meaning they haven't moved in millions of years."