A magnitude 4.2 earthquake shook Michigan on Saturday afternoon and residents in Metro Detroit reported feeling the earth move.
The earthquake was centered 8km south of Galesburg, outside of Kalamazoo and was recorded shortly after noon, said National Weather Service White Lake meteorologist Joseph Clark.
Larry Ruff, a seismologist in the University of Michigan’s Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, said Saturday’s today’s quake was the largest quake with an epicenter in Michigan since a magnitude-4.6 earthquake near the town of Coldwater on Aug. 10, 1947.
The Coldwater quake was the largest Michigan earthquake in records dating back about a century. The last significant earthquake in Michigan was a magnitude-3.5 event that occurred on Sept. 2, 1994, southwest of Lansing.
“We feel a lot of relatively small earthquakes in the state, but most of them occur to the south of Michigan,” Ruff said. “So to have an earthquake of this magnitude with the epicenter in Michigan is very unusual.”
The distance between the 1947 Coldwater earthquake and Saturday’s quake near Galesburg is less than 50 miles, and Ruff said he will try to determine if they are related. “I think it could be significant that they are so close, but we just don’t know yet.”
People reported feeling tremors in Indiana, Ohio, Illinois and across Lake Michigan in Wisconsin.
For the full article, see “A 4.2 earthquake rattles Michigan”, Detroit News, May 2, 2015.
For another, see Jennifer Dixon and Gina Damron, “No injuries reported after earthquake rattles Michigan”, Detroit Free Press, May 2, 2015.