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What I found interesting was the 5.0 quake near Iceland today. Isn’t that rather unusual? I really don’t know.

When I lived in Alaska we were always having quakes.....large and small. I’m afraid we became a bit complacent about them. Not a good thing to do.

Iceland is on the Mid-Atlantic ridge. moderate earthquakes are fairly routine there.

We’re seeing the “attention effect” - people who never used to look at worldwide earthquake sites are doing so now, and the internet makes such information more available.

the 5.0 quake near Iceland today. Isn’t that rather unusual?

Not really. They don't get them every day, but somewhere along the midAtlantic ridge shakes that much now and then. It's hardly ever huge like they have in the Ring of Fire.

Rushmore Rocks wrote: "What I found interesting was the 5.0 quake near Iceland today. Isn’t that rather unusual? I really don’t know.

When I lived in Alaska we were always having quakes.....large and small. I’m afraid we became a bit complacent about them. Not a good thing to do."

After you lived in Alaska, I imagine that just about any place on earth would seem quiet to you. Perhaps you might even find the San Andreas fault zone to be a steady calm place to live. ;-)

This 5.0 quake was actually closer to Greenland than Iceland:

825 km (510 miles) ESE of Qaqortoq (Julianehab), Greenland
945 km (580 miles) SSE of Tasiilaq (Angmagssalik), Greenland
960 km (590 miles) SW of REYKJAVIK, Iceland
1260 km (780 miles) ESE of NUUK (GODTHAB), Greenland

The Reykjanes Ridge is an active seismic zone, yet because there are many more active seismic zones all over the world, people might tend to overlook this area.

Also, this year this zone has been more quiet than in the past, so it would be only natural if someone viewed this as an unusual event for the area.

Magnitude 5.0 REYKJANES RIDGE
Tuesday, October 02, 2007 at 16:34:46 UTC

Historic Seismicity

Magnitude 5.0 - REYKJANES RIDGE