Our First Earthquake

Did you know that Alaska has earthquakes? I didn't until we found out that we were moving here and started studying the state more in depth.
I was just sitting in the living room watching TV this morning at 6:00AM (AT) and felt the room shake and heard the ceiling fan pull strings move. It felt a little like the room was vibrating, but very little. Just enough to not be normal. I doubted it at first, but then I pulled it up on the Internet. We just experienced a 5.3 magnitude 81 miles from the center of Anchorage and parts of Anchorage felt the quake. This is the information from the HSGS site.

Earthquake Details


Magnitude 5.3

Date-Time Thursday, July 28, 2011 at 14:00:00 UTC

Thursday, July 28, 2011 at 06:00:00 AM at epicenter

Location 62.074°N, 151.390°W

Depth 89.7 km (55.7 miles)

Region CENTRAL ALASKA

Distances 23 km (14 miles) NNW (343°) from Skwentna, AK

47 km (29 miles) SW (225°) from Petersville, AK

60 km (37 miles) WSW (245°) from Trapper Creek, AK

130 km (81 miles) NW (319°) from Anchorage, AK

The disappointing thing is that Jordan who is still asleep; missed our first earthquake. by the way did i mention that this daylight thing is a bit of an adjustment. The sun rises somewhere around 5AM and sets around 10:45PM so that is usually when I am awake. We do have really heavy curtains in our bedroom and throughout the apartment for that matter so we draw all of those before going to bed, but my internal clock still wakes me up. Its great when you have things to do because there is more daylight to do them. Its only the first week so hopefully i will adapt to the new schedule.