an email from my friend in Anchorage:

Jan,

Here is an article from today's newspaper on the 6.7 quake. Thought you might be interested in it. Take care.


6.7 quake east of Denali jolts Alaska north to south
POWERFUL: No injuries reported in biggest temblor to hit a major Alaska Range fault in 90 years.

By Doug O'Harra
Anchorage Daily News

(Published: October 24, 2002)
An earthquake walloped the state early Wednesday morning, knocking things off shelves and waking people from Prince William Sound to the Yukon River.

But no one reported injuries or major damage to Alaska State Troopers or earthquake experts.

The quake struck at 3:27 a.m. with a magnitude of 6.7 about 28 miles east of Denali National Park and Preserve and about 31 miles east-northeast of Cantwell at a depth of about three miles, according to the Alaska Earthquake Information Center in Fairbanks.

It was the most powerful quake to hit a major Alaska Range fault in 90 years, scientists said.

"The first hit was substantial -- it almost knocked me out of bed," said Mike Speaks, an adventure travel guide living in a log cabin near Mile 227 of the Parks Highway.

"I had a bunch of things that all leapt to the floor and broke," he said. "I've been here 20-plus years, and it's the biggest shake I've ever felt."

Among the shattered treasures was a teapot Speaks had collected during a visit to Afghanistan.

"Super Glue works wonders, but now there will be a big crack in it," he said.

By noon, the quake had triggered at least 40 aftershocks along a 25-mile stretch of the Denali fault, including a 3.8 shaker that struck about 6:46 a.m. about 15 miles southeast of Denali, said research seismologist Natasha Ratchkovski.

The quake was felt up to 350 miles away, but was most intense in Railbelt communities between Anchorage and Fairbanks, earthquake officials said.

By Wednesday afternoon, 375 people living in 39 Alaska zip codes had reported feeling some motion to the U.S. Geological Survey's national "Did you feel it?" Web site.

The quake cleared shelves and stripped walls at the Grandview Bed and Breakfast in Healy, about 37 miles to the northwest, said co-owner Shelly Acteson.

"Usually they kind of roll, you can kind of hear them coming," she said. "This one sounded like it was mad -- boom, boom, boom."

Wine bottles and canned goods crashed to the floor at the general store in Talkeetna, about 100 miles to the southwest, said manager Kris Mahay.

"I had a mess in the liquor store," Mahay said. "If it went on any longer or harder, it would have been bad because everything was on the edge of the shelf."

The Denali fault curves from Canada through the heart of the Alaska Range, forming the longest U.S. fault where crustal plates slip past each other horizontally, Ratchkovski said. The most well-known "strike-slip" fault is the San Andreas in California.

Driven by immense geologic forces, land to the south of the Denali fault slowly creeps west while land to the north slowly creeps east, Ratchkovski said. The motion averages about a centimeter per year, but the two sides often lock up for decades, allowing pressure to build.

When two sides of the fault finally slip, the shake is felt as an earthquake.

Wednesday's was the fault's biggest jolt since a 7.2 earthquake in 1912, according to the National Earthquake Information Center. A 6.2 quake hit the fault in 1962, east of the Richardson Highway. A team of geologists plan to go out to take measurements, Ratchkovski said.

"It is quite exciting," she said. "Most of the seismic instruments in Alaska were installed from the 1970s onward. This is the best recorded earthquake on the Denali fault ever."

Doug O'Harra can be reached at do'harra@adn.com and 907-257-4334. The Associated Press contributed to this story.

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ON THE WEB: Alaska Earthquake Information Center www.aeic.alaska.edu/

A bulletin about this quake from the National Earthquake Information Center neic.usgs.gov/neis/bulletin/neic_kqaz.html

Did you feel it? Where Alaskans can report feeling this quake to the U.S. Geological Survey pasadena.wr.usgs.gov/shake/ak/STORE/X20550/ciim_display.html