Seismic Activity Detected in New Brunswick

A so called "swarm" of small earthquakes was recently detected in southern New Brunswick.

Maurice Lamontagne of Earthquakes Canada says the seismic activity has since settled down and will most likely die out.

Lamontagne says the earthquakes were of such low magnitude — about 2.3 on the Richter scale — that people in the sparsely populated area may have heard a rumble, but probably felt nothing beneath their feet.

He says the quakes were relatively shallow and focused less than five kilometres beneath the earth's crust.

Lamontagne says the pattern of seismic activity, known as an earthquake swarm, has settled and will most likely die out. He notes that in less than one per cent of cases does such activity lead to a larger earthquake, adding "it's really mother nature that decides."

The seismologist says he and his colleagues are monitoring the situation but "it's really mother nature that decides."

In February, more than 100 earthquakes rocked the village of McAdam near the New Brunswick-Maine border, but seismic activity in the area has since subsided.