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Science Specialist Ed Yeates reportingAs earthquakes go, it wasn't much of a shaker in Northern Utah last night, but a lot of people felt it.
The quake hit shortly after 10 p.m. deep under Pineview Reservoir.
The earthquake registered a meager 3.6 magnitude, but because of the time and place where it happened, hundreds of people from Salt Lake to Logan felt it.
Coincidentally, as crews even today continue remodeling the Pineview dam to make it earthquake safe, the epicenter of this small quake broke loose about eight miles under the reservoir, very near the dam itself.
Even though a tremor this size seldom, if ever, causes damage, authorities at the dam checked everything last night and again this morning just to make sure.
Because of the quake's location, hundreds of people felt it, especially in the Ogden valley.
"We ran outside and all the neighbors were outside as well. And I think everybody was in disbelief like is it going to happen again, is there going to be another jolt? It was startling," says Jason Goddard, a resident of Ogden.
Huntsville here was the closest town to the epicenter of the quake.
"All of a sudden, the house and floor started shaking. It got fairly intense for a couple of seconds, lasted about five to 10 seconds," says Rock Harper from Huntsville.
"My husband and I just stared at each other for a few minutes until it was over and then said that was an earthquake," says Pat Songer from Huntsville.
At the University of Utah seismograph stations, the new system worked without a flaw. Computer maps quickly identified the epicenter and how much people felt the shaking.
On an intensity scale of one to 10, this was a meager level four.
"This is not at all unusual for anywhere in Northern Utah or even the entire state of Utah. We have an average of about a three earthquakes in Utah about once a month, a magnitude three and a half about every three or four months," says Sue Nava, who works with the University of Utah seismology stations.
