[ad_1]Screengrab via USGSPeople in Eastern Ontario who felt a tremor early Tuesday afternoon, April 14, weren't just imagining it.A magnitude 4.0 earthquake was detected in western Quebec, close to the Ontario border, at 12:36 p. m., as reported by the United States Geological Survey (USGS). The quake was situated 20 km northeast of Shawville, QC; 59 km east of Pembroke, 62 km west-northwest of Gatineau, and 63 km west-northwest of Ottawa.Readers from Hometownist mentioned feeling the shaking from Trenton in the west to Cornwall in the east.An earthquake with a magnitude of 4.0 is generally seen as moderate. Earthquakes measuring 2.0 or less are usually too minor to notice, while those at 8.0 or above can cause devastating damage near their epicenter.According to the USGS website, residents in the large Western Quebec seismic zone have experienced small earthquakes and dealt with damage from larger ones for three hundred years.The two most significant damaging quakes happened in 1935 (magnitude 6.1) at the northwest end of this seismic area and in 1732 (magnitude 6.2) about 450 km (280 mi) away at its southeastern end where it caused major destruction in Montreal. Generally, earthquakes cause damage within this zone roughly once every ten years.Smaller quakes occur about three or four times each year, according to USGS.[ad_2]Source link
