Interior Alaska feels magnitude 3.7 earthquake

FAIRBANKS, Alaska (KTVF) - Interior Alaska experienced an earthquake on Wednesday, December 7 that could be felt in the Fairbanks area.

The event occurred at 7:21 a.m. and its epicenter was located about 19 miles south of Fairbanks and Ester.

As of noon on Wednesday, no damage was reported . A magnitude 3.7, an event of this scale is not unusual for the region.

According to a Stephen Holtkamp, a seismologist with the Alaska Earthquake Center, these smaller events are a good reminder to always be prepared in case of an earthquake. “This is a known active fault zone. There are several sort of southwest to northeast-trending faults that cut through Fairbanks and down towards Salcha, a series of these faults, so this earthquake was on one of those. 3.7 is about standard. There are several other examples of earthquakes like this in the past 10 years.”

For comparison, the 1967 earthquakes that hit the Fairbanks area measured in the range of magnitude 5.

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