Thanksgiving Day Earthquake rattles Mat-Su

People all across Southcentral Alaska awoke to shaking and rattling on Thanksgiving morning as a magnitude-6 earthquake shook the area, according to the Alaska Earthquake Center.

The earthquake struck at 8:11 a.m., at a depth of 43 miles, according to the USGS. Its epicenter was located 7 miles west-northwest of Susitna, Alaska, an area about 67 miles northwest of Anchorage. There were no immediate reports of significant damage.

Alaskans across the Mat-Su, Anchorage, and even Kenai Peninsula reported feeling strong, prolonged shaking.

Many posted to social media that the quake was eerily similar to the magnitude 7.1 earthquake that rocked Southcentral Alaska in November, 2018, nearly seven years to the date. According to the UAF Earthquake Center, which reported that many have asked if this was an aftershock of quake, the November 28 earthquake “fell outside the aftershock region of that earthquake.”

The earthquake came the same week that a magnitude 4.6 quake struck in Hawaii ion and a magnitude 4.0 earthquake hit near Gilroy, California. Other notable seismic activity in California included a magnitude 3.9 quake near The Geysers on November 27. However, those were not directly related to a single large earthquake in Alaska.

While California, Hawaii, and Alaska are all in seismically active regions, their local earthquakes are caused by distinct fault systems, not a chain reaction from a single event. The earthquakes in California and Hawaii last week are part of their own regional tectonic activity, rather than being linked to a recent major seismic event in Alaska.

Alaska is the most earthquake-prone state in the U.S. and one of the most seismically active regions in the world, according to the USGS. The state experiences a magnitude 7 earthquake almost annually.