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QuickTake:
Although the quake, offshore west of Bandon, occurred near the fault line capable of producing “The Big One,” it originated in a different offshore fracture zone.
A magnitude 6.0 earthquake struck off the central Oregon coast Thursday evening, about 183 miles west of Bandon, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
The shallow quake, about 4 miles deep, hit at 7:25 p.m.
Earthquake magnitude is measured on a scale from 0 to more than 9.0. Those in the magnitude 6 range can cause damage to buildings near the epicenter, especially older or poorly constructed structures, but damage is usually limited when they occur offshore or far from population centers.
There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries, and no tsunami warning was issued from Thursday’s event.
Seven people in Eugene reported to the Geological Survey feeling a weak shake – part of the collective 131 reports across western Oregon from Portland to Port Orford.
“Ordinarily, we wouldn’t expect an earthquake of this magnitude to cause appreciable shaking for people on land so far away,” said Gabriel Lotto, a ShakeAlert technical engagement lead with the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network at the University of Washington.
“These reports are confirmed by quantitative measurements from seismic instruments that show a maximum of MMI 2 shaking,” said Lotto, referring to the Modified Mercalli Intensity scale, which measures shaking intensity from barely noticeable at level 1 to extreme shaking at level 10.
“At that level, most people wouldn’t feel it, but some people who are sitting still and paying attention might notice something,” he said.
A weaker 3.1 magnitude aftershock followed at 10:35 p.m.
The epicenter was in a fracture zone between the Pacific and Juan de Fuca plates. This is essentially a crack in the Earth’s crust where two tectonic plates meet and can suddenly shift past one another, releasing built-up energy as an earthquake.
The Juan de Fuca Plate presses against the North American Plate at the Cascadia Subduction Zone. The fault is capable of producing a magnitude 9.0 earthquake, long prompting emergency managers and leaders to urge preparedness for “The Big One.”
Thursday’s earthquake did not occur within the Cascadia Subduction Zone.
“It’s on a transform fault zone called the Blanco Fracture Zone,” Lotto said. “It’s disconnected from Cascadia,” and gets one to two earthquakes of magnitude 5 or greater each year.
“So this earthquake is definitely in the expected range of behavior for us” at the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network, he said.