Despite reports, temblor didn't strike Evanston
Posted: Friday, November 30, 2007 12:00 am
CHEYENNE (AP) - If you live in Evanston and didn't see vases falling off shelves or feel the ground shaking beneath your feet Thursday afternoon … well, there was no cause for alarm.
That's despite an automated report by the U.S. Geological Survey that a magnitude 4.6 earthquake struck three miles south-southeast of Evanston at 12:08 p.m.
The magnitude was later revised down to 3.3.
But there was no earthquake.
Analysts at the National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colo., said it was a false report triggered by data from a major quake in the Caribbean. Centered 23 miles southeast of Dominica, that quake had a magnitude of 7.4 and was felt 250 miles away in Puerto Rico.
Don Blakeman, an earthquake analyst at the National Earthquake Information Center, said it's common for large, deep quakes to create false data patterns that appear to be quakes elsewhere.
"That definitely happened today," he said.
He said there were several other false reports, including a 6.0 non-quake in California.
He said the center did get a real reading from mine blasting outside Newcastle on Thursday, but that happens in Wyoming nearly every day.