A 5.5 magnitude earthquake was reported in the Brooks Range region of Alaska this morning, followed by an aftershock nearly as powerful.
This is the second moderate earthquake felt this week, on Wednesday a 5.06 magnitude quake was felt in Anchorage and as far south as Cooper Landing and Valdez.
Seismologist Natasha Ruppert with the Alaska Earthquake Information Center said there does not seem to have been a rise in earthquakes, there have just been a few more larger events recently.
Ruppert: “Most of them are small and people don’t notice it but people are noticing it because we are looking at the data and reporting on the earthquakes. Occasionally there are larger events that kind of make it into the news stream and people talk about it so it seems in appearance that there are more earthquakes because they are more high profile and more visible.”
Ruppert said on average Alaska has as many as 100 earthquakes per day.