BOISE -- Around 10:45 this morning a 4.9 magnitude earthquake shook the town of Challis. Tremors were felt across Idaho, from McCall to the Treasure Valley. A Boise State professor we spoke with said earthquakes, like the one this morning, happen about every seven years.
Shannon Nevins contacted NewsChannel Seven to find out what she felt.
"I was just laying here on the couch watching TV, and all of a sudden I felt like what felt like somebody was pushing against the back of the couch," said Nevins, who lives in West Boise. She continues, "And I thought, 'is that an earthquake?' And I looked over at my entertainment center where I have my Christmas stockings hanging and they started to sway back and fourth, and I was like, 'yes this is an earthquake.'"
She said it only lasted for a few seconds.
The earthquake happened about five miles underground just east of Challis. Lee Liberty is a professor of geosciences at Boise State University. He said being able to feel an earthquake depends on three things---the depth of the quake, your distance from the epicenter, and the materials underground.
"In Boise, we're sitting on a sedimentary basin here," he said. "That sediment tends to amplify the ground motions. If you were sitting on the rocks up in the mountains or something, you wouldn't feel much shaking at all, but down in the valley here we feel quite a bit more shaking."
Liberty wants to stress that Saturday's earthquake does not necessarily indicate a bigger one is forthcoming. However, he said it's a reminder to be prepared.
"It's also a good reminder in Earth sciences that the Earth is alive, that it's moving and this is one of the effects that we see," said Liberty.
Today's earthquake has a magnitude of 4.9. For some perspective, Liberty says the 1983 Borah Peak earthquake was 6.9, and the Fukushima earthquake in Japan in 2011 was 9.2
Meanwhile, the Idaho branch of the US Geological Survey would like to know what you felt where you are.
