Earthquakes Canada reports quake east of Sudbury

An earthquake that rumbled through Sudbury Wednesday afternoon was large enough to be felt, but not large enough to do any damage.

Earthquakes Canada confirms a 2.9 magnitude quake occurred at 5:08 p.m. on Wednesday.

Seismologist Allison Bent says the epicentre was 27 kilometres east of Sudbury.

"With these small earthquakes, there's not really too much you can say about them other than that they are a reminder that earthquakes do happen, and it's part of nature and it's good to be aware of them," she said.

"But generally when they're small they cause more excitement than any real problem."

She says it's hard for Earthquakes Canada to determine what may have caused the rumble.

"We understand in general what causes earthquakes, but why exactly that place and time no, we can't say," Bent said.

"I guess maybe it's fortunate for the people who live there because these earthquakes are small and below the surface we don't see a rupture. So that makes it hard to say it happened on a specific fault, but there obviously is a fault at depth."

Bent says this was a genuine earthquake, although we do sometimes get what are known as "frost quakes" during the winter.