A small earthquake was reported just outside Montreal on Monday, Earthquakes Canada says.
The federal agency says on its website that a magnitude 3.2 earthquake took place around 8:12 a.m. near Valleyfield, a city in southwestern Quebec roughly 60 kilometres from Montreal.
The epicentre of the earthquake was 23 kilometres east-southeast of Valleyfield, and 41 kilometres southwest of Montreal.
The earthquake was “felt in Montreal,” the agency said.
“There are no reports of damage, and none would be expected,” it added.
Canada averages 11 earthquakes per day
According to Earthquakes Canada, the Geological Survey of Canada records and locates more than 4,000 earthquakes in Canada each year, which averages out to 11 per day. Of those 4,000, only about 50, or one per week, are generally felt.
Most earthquakes occur along the active plate boundaries off British Columbia’s coast, and along the northern Cordillera (southwestern corner of the Yukon Territory and in the Richardson Mountains and Mackenzie Valley), as well as in arctic margins (including Nunavut and northern Quebec).
Earthquakes also occur frequently in the Ottawa and St. Lawrence Valleys, in New Brunswick, and the offshore region to the south of Newfoundland.
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The largest earthquake ever recorded in Canada was a magnitude 8.1 event that struck just off the Haida Gwaii on Canada’s west coast on Aug. 22, 1949.
The 1949 earthquake ruptured a 500-kilometre-long segment of the Queen Charlotte fault, and was felt over almost all of British Columbia, and as far north as the Yukon Territory and as far south as Oregon State, Earthquakes Canada said.
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