Seattle Shakes

By Douglas V. Gibbs
Author, Speaker, Instructor, Radio Host

No, we are not talking about a new brand of ice cream shake restaurants sprouting up around the birthplace of Grunge.  Seattle has recently been the home of a swarm of earthquakes of various, though smaller, magnitudes.

Seattle, Washington does belong to the Pacific Ring of fire.  The 1980 Mount Saint Helens eruption sent ashes all the way down here to the southern end of Southern California, and farther.

In this latest round of rattling, a swarm of minor earthquakes have been haunting the Kitsap Peninsula (home of the Naval Base in that region) region on the other side of the Puget Sound from Seattle Tacoma.

The earthquakes have ranged between 2.1 and 3.6 magnitude, with epicenters in the vicinity of Bremerton, and one Whidbey Island earth quake registered at 3.4 magnitude.  Hundreds of people have reported they felt some intensity of the shaking from a series of 13 earthquakes, so far, in and around the Kitsap Peninsula.  The fault zone affected also runs across the Puget Sound, and through the heavily populated City of Seattle.

The 3.4 magnitude earthquake that struck Whidbey Island is not being considered as a part of the swarm of quakes south of that location.  John Vidale of the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network (PNSN) stated, “There’s no reason to believe the Bremerton swarm would trigger the Whidbey earthquake, 50 kilometers away.  It’s probably a coincidence.”  Officials have also indicated the swarm should end soon.

Vidale also assures the residents of the area that he did not believe the swarm of quakes signifies that stronger earthquakes were imminent. “It has almost no effect on our assessment for the area in the future,” he said of the swarm.