Earthquake rattles Resolute
Seismologist: 'An event this big happens only once every 300 years'
Beth Brown
Northern News Services
Monday, January 16, 2017
QAUSUITTUQ/RESOLUTE
Two earthquakes rumbled through Resolute on Jan. 8 and 9.
Resident Leena Simeoinie told Nunavut News/North in a Facebook message that the first quake felt to her like her family home had been hit with a front-end loader.
"I felt my house hit so hard and it started out loud and noisy," she stated. "It started moving and shaking and then slowly stopped."
She said at first her family thought something was wrong with the washing machine - even though the laundry wasn't running.
"My son was asking 'What was that?', and I told him 'I think that was an earthquake.'"
The first quake took place on a Sunday evening at 5:45 p.m., 92 kilometres east of the hamlet and measured 5.9 Mw (moment magnitude) according to an Earthquakes Canada report.
The second quake, measuring 5.1 MB (body-wave magnitude), was 85 kilometres east and hit the hamlet the following morning at 11:55 a.m, while the majority of the community was attending a funeral service.
Both measurements express the magnitude of energy released in the quake.
"When the big one hit, there were two big bangs beforehand. Then there was a prolonged rumble, around 20 seconds," said hamlet senior administrative officer Mike Stephens.
"There were a few cracks in some of the houses but there was no major damage."
Stephens said this might be due to the fact that none of the buildings in the community of approximately 230 people aremore than three storeys high.
"Just fractures in the drywall from shifting of the permafrost is what we think."
No one was hurt in either incident - though he said his dog wasn't too pleased with the quake.
Some windows were reported to have cracked.
Nick Ackerley, a seismic analyst with the Geological Survey of Canada, said a cracked window represents some of the lightest and most classic damage that would follow a quake, and that the wood frame houses most common in Northern hamlets are generally resilient.
He also noted that while only two earthquakes were recorded online for their size, there was actually a large series of disruptions known as aftershocks, all at decreasing magnitudes.
"There were seven when I last looked," he said on Jan. 11. "An aftershock sequence typically lasts weeks to months."
The last recorded quake near Resolute was in 2008, and measured 4.6 in magnitude. Residents were noting that event as comparable - though Ackerley said that's because the smaller quake was closer to the town.
"The largest in this area since we have had good monitoring systems, since about 1960, was in 1987 and it was a magnitude of 5.2."
He said although the recent earthquake didn't cause the kind of damage a similar quake would cause in southern Canada, the event is noteworthy because it is a rarity in the seismic zone that includes the areas in and around Somerset Island, Devon Island and Cornwallis Island.
"According to our latest seismic hazard model, an event this big happens only once every 300 years," he said.
Conveniently, the monitoring station in Resolute was upgraded this summer.
"The new gear actually did a better job of recording this earthquake than the old gear," he said.
Stephens said the hamlet's emergency response plan, which covers power outages and oil spills, has no mention of earthquakes. A new council, appointed last week, will have to look into altering the emergency response plan, he said.
"We'll have to look at that for sure."
The Earthquakes Canada website has a questionnaire called Did You Feel It, which Ackerley encouraged people to use as it helps the department find new information.
