2 Earthquakes Felt Under Bonney Lake

BONNEY LAKE, WA - The march of the Bonney Lake earthquakes continues into May. Since the beginning of the month, two small earthquakes have been measured under Bonney Lake. The latest was a magnitude 2.1 that struck on Sunday.

Between late March and early April, four small earthquakes shook under Bonney Lake. The quakes were so small that it's unlikely anyone felt them. Last month, Patch.com reached out to the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network to find out whether the rash of quakes was significant.

"They happen all the time," Bill Steele, the PNSN's director of outreach, told us. In other words, earthquakes are part of life in the Pacific Northwest. Steele said, historically, there haven't been any sizable quakes in the Bonney Lake area, and there aren't any active faults, either.

On Sunday at about 1:30 p.m., a magnitude 2.1 was detected under Bonney Lake at the end of 88th Street East off of Riverside Road. At around noon last Tuesday, there was a magnitude 1.1 in virtually the same location.

Of the four quakes that occurred in late winter, the first two struck on March 28. The first quake was a magnitude 1.3 at a depth of over 9 miles detected just before 8 a.m. That quake was located at the edge of the plateau near 180th Drive East. The second quake was a magnitude 1.0 also at a depth of about 9 miles; that quake happened a short distance from the other one near the Lowe's store along Prairie Road East.

On April 5, two small quakes hit. The first one struck around 5 a.m. and was near 92nd Street east near SR 410. The second quake happened just before 6 p.m. near the intersection of Veterans Memorial Drive East and Main Street East. The first quake was a magnitude 1.5, the second a 1.4, according to the USGS.

Image via Shutterstock