2.4 quake felt in the San Juans

Yes, that was an earthquake early today.

One resident called San Juan County Dispatch four or five times today asking whether there was an earthquake this morning. There was — the so-called “micro” earthquake occurred at 2:50:46 a.m., and measured 2.4 on the Richter scale.

That’s according to the University of Washington’s Pacific Northwest Seismograph Network (www.ess.washington.edu/recenteqs/latest.htm). It was the 24th quake in Washington and Oregon in two weeks and the fifth in two days.

The coordinates of the epicenter were 48 degrees 29.6 minutes North, 122 degrees 53.0 minutes West. That’s six miles east-southeast of Friday Harbor, 22 miles east-northeast of Victoria, B.C., and 26 miles west-northwest of Mount Vernon, according to the Pacific Northwest Seismograph Network.

No damage was reported in the county. But a “bang and then a shake” awakened Rowena Hall and her husband in their home on Whiskey Hill, overlooking Lopez Island’s Fisherman Bay.

“It lasted for about three seconds,” Hall said. “It was quite a jolt; it woke us up.”

The last quake felt in San Juan County was on Sept. 20 — a 4.1 shaker that is the strongest earthquake reported in Washington this year. It was centered seven miles south and west of Friday Harbor. It was followed by a series of aftershocks ranging from 1.9 to 1.1 in magnitude.

The North Puget Sound is historically a hotbed of underground seismic activity that spawns a considerable number of earthquakes each year, most of which are minor, said Carl Poschman, San Juan County’s coordinator of emergency services.

“A nexus of fault lines come together just north of Victoria,” he said. “There’s really a lot of activity going on underground all the time around us.”

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