News / Vancouver

A 6.5-magnitude earthquake struck off

the B.C. coast and nobody felt it
Seismologists say a slow earthquake struck Vancouver Island on Dec. 21 and is still being detected
in northern Washington.
By: Thandi Fletcher Metro Published on Thu Jan 14 2016

A huge earthquake measuring at least 6.5 on the Richter scale recently shook Vancouver Island
and nobody felt it.
Thats because the tremor happened over about eight days.
Called a slow earthquake, the most recent event started Dec. 21 below the surface of Vancouver
Island and kept shaking until Dec. 30 before migrating south to northern Washington, where
continued seismic activity was recorded as recently as Tuesday.
I like to describe them as the banana slug of earthquakes, said University of Washington graduate
student Shelley Chestler, who is writing her thesis on slow earthquakes. While they work the same
way as normal earthquakes as far as two plates slipping past each other, that slip happens much
more slowly in the order of a month rather than 15 seconds.
While the 4.9-magnitude earthquake that struck off the coast of Saanich on Dec. 29 did coincide with
the ongoing slow earthquake beneath Vancouver Island, Chestler said its unclear if the two were
connected.
Slow earthquakes, also known as slow slip events, are clusters of tremors that shake the ground like
normal earthquakes, but the ground motions are so slight that only sensitive instruments called
seismometers can detect them. Along the Cascadia subduction zone beneath southern Vancouver
Island and northern Washington, slow earthquakes are recorded every 12 to 15 months.
Chestler said slow earthquakes can release the same amount of energy as a magnitude-6.5 to 6.8
normal earthquake, but because they release this energy more slowly, they can't be felt.
Simon Fraser University earth sciences professor John Clague describes the phenomenon as a
band of lights that turn on and off steadily.
Along this band, all hell breaks loose and they start blinking as all these earthquakes start
occurring, he said. The sources of these earthquakes are typically quite far below the earths
surface. Probably about 30 or 40 kilometres.
While slow earthquakes are being actively researched, Chestler said scientists are still puzzled
about what causes them and why they dont happen all the time.
But she emphasized that slow earthquakes are nothing to be alarmed about.
Theyre not making it more likely for the Big One to occur at any time and they dont generate
dangerous shaking, she said. Theyre just there and theyre pretty interesting and cool.