Yes, that was an earthquake near Ketchikan on Sunday night. Here’s why it’s not showing up online

Map showing the Sunday night M4.1 earthquake (orange circle) and nearby seismic stations (grey triangles and circles). (Screenshot from the Alaska Earthquake Center website)

The mayor of Ketchikan, Dave Keefer, was about to call her Sunday night when he sensed something familiar.

“I was lying in bed reading, and I felt the whole house gleam a little, and I went, ‘Oh, I know what this is! I’ve felt it before,” Kiefer recalled on Monday.

So he did what anyone would do in the 49th state shortly after an earthquake: check the location of the earthquake epicenter in Alaska.

“Zebo, nada,” he said, “nothing.”

Soon, there were a few earthquakes listed in other parts of the state, but none near Ketchikan.

So Kiefer decided to reach out to some seismologists in the south.

“What happened last night was a 4.2-magnitude medium-sized earthquake,” said Hon Kao, a researcher with the Geological Survey of Canada. His agency located the epicenter about 50 miles southeast of Ketchikan — 10 kilometers under the Misty Strait, just barely on the American side of the border.

“Its location is right around the border between the Alaska Panhandle and British Columbia,” he said.

A magnitude 4.2 is not a massive earthquake of any extension. But Kiefer says he was a little upset when he woke up the next morning and state seismologists still didn’t notice the quake.

“Seriously, what are we, minced liver?” Kiefer said while laughing.

Between 9:57 p.m. Sunday, when the quake struck near Ketchikan, and 6 a.m. the following morning, state automated seismic stations recorded 11 earthquakes across the state ranging in magnitude from 1.1 to 3.5. But there is still anything listed near Ketchikan on the websites of the USGS or the Alaska Earthquake Center.

“The state usually does a really good job – I have no complaints with them,” he said. “It’s kind of baffling. It’s like, ‘Maybe they thought we were part of Canada.'”

Alaskan authorities did not acknowledge the quake until Monday afternoon, with a magnitude of 4.1. Natalia Robert, chief scientist at the Alaska Earthquake Center, attributes the error to inadequate seismic sensor coverage.

“Unfortunately, our network in that area is not comprehensive,” she said. “Right now, last night, we really missed detecting that earthquake, but this morning, we actually went back and looked at our data and re-analyzed the data, and we were able to report that earthquake as well.”

And while she says the Alaska Seismological Center is doing its best to include as much data as possible from Canadian seismic sensors, she says that Alaska earthquake monitors did not receive data from nearby Canadian stations Sunday night.

“We try to exchange data, but the networks change, and sometimes they update things and those updates don’t propagate all the way into our system,” she said.

Hon Kao, of Seismology Canada, says stations at Prince Rupert and Haida Gwaii have been affected by the shaking. But he says a larger earthquake is unlikely to go unnoticed.

“If we have a relatively large event, then all the stations, far and near, can detect a signal, and therefore, any agency can locate it,” he said. “But for events smaller than 5 degrees, it’s usually only local stations that can better detect the event.”

Keefer, the mayor of Ketchikan, says he’s not particularly concerned that local agencies have missed the quake.

“It’s funny to me, more than anything,” he said. “I mean, we don’t get it that often. It’s good to show up at the state level and count the number of people.”

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