MONTREAL -- It was a rumbling start to the week for some Montrealers after a 3.9-magnitude earthquake hit parts of the province Monday.
According to Earthquakes Canada, the seismic event occurred at 7:03 a.m. near Joliette, about an hour north-east of Montreal. It was felt in Laval, Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville and Notre-Dame-de-Grâce (NDG), according to some viewers.
"We don't really know where all of them are so most of the time when we have an earthquake, it's a little bit of a surprise," explains Christie Rowe, an associate professor of geology at McGill University. "It's part of a longterm pattern for millions of years of having earthquakes like this in the area and this was not a very big one."
The agency notes earthquakes of magnitudes between 3.5 to 5.4 are "often felt, but rarely cause damage."
The earthquake's epicentre was recorded at a depth of 18 kilometres. There were no reported damages.
"These kinds of fun-size earthquakes are very common," Rowe said, inviting people to fill out the 'Did you feel it?' questionnaire to help seismologists looking at the data. "I get crazy excited about it...it's sort of like looking at the stars and realizing that you're small or feeling an earthquake and realizing that our time is so short compared to what the Earth is doing."
The largest earthquake in this region was on September 16, 1732, recorded at a 5.8 magnitude.
Earthquakes Canada notes more than 4,000 earthquakes are reported in Canada each year -- about 11 per day. Only 50, or about one per week, are felt.
