Earthquakes rare around Yellowknife

Department seismologist Janet Drysdale said earlier Monday that given Yellowknife is in the middle of the North American tectonic plate, earthquakes are extremely rare in that area.

"In Yellowknife itself, they're very unusual; in fact, I think there's only been one other earthquake since the mid-1970s," she had said in an interview.

Those earthquakes from the mid-1970s had a magnitude of around 2.5 to 3, still below the minimum magnitude in which damage occurs.

"However, within Northern Canada, there's many areas that have a lot of earthquakes," she added, noting areas as far east as Baffin Bay to the Mackenzie Mountain and Beaufort Sea areas in the west." http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/story/2009/11/16/yknife-quake.html