There was a small earthquake in northern New Brunswick early Sunday morning.
According to Natural Resources Canada, a 2.6-magnitude earthquake was recorded in a wooded area just south of Mount Carleton Provincial Park at 4:23 a.m AT.
It’s likely the impact was minimal, the department said.
“It would be very locally felt, if any,” said Stephen Crane, a research scientist with Natural Resources Canada. “We wouldn’t expect it to be felt too far away.”
To put it in perspective, Crane said the threshold for damage is about 5.0. “So a 2.6 is really small compared to what we would expect to cause damage,” he said.
125 earthquakes in last 10 years
An earthquake in the area isn’t that unusual. There have been about 125 earthquakes of 2.0 magnitude or greater in the general vicinity over the past 10 years, with the largest being 3.7, according to Crane.
“So this area does have a history of earthquakes, but they have been very small, for the last little while at least,” Crane said.
“It’s quite a bit of earthquakes for a region that doesn’t experience earthquakes a lot, but obviously there are other regions in Canada that experience a lot more,” he said.
Crane said nobody had reported feeling the earthquake as of Sunday afternoon, but he said it’s important to track all earthquakes regardless of size.
He said Sunday morning’s earthquake will be added to a database which is used to study earthquake patterns.
“It is a good reminder that an earthquake really could occur anytime, anywhere,” he said.
