Cluster of earthquakes registers off of Oregon Coast, poses no threat

A series of shallow earthquakes registered several hundred miles off the Oregon Coast on Wednesday morning, but quake experts say there’s no tsunami threat.

Don Blakeman, a geophysicist at the National Earthquake Information Center, explained the area off shore is a seismically active zone and clusters of quakes there are common.

“In this zone here, the plates are basically pulling apart or sliding past one another,” he said. “So you don’t get the vertical movement that would cause a tsunami.”

The largest of the quakes was magnitude 5.6, and it happened just before 5 a.m. There were three smaller earthquakes before it and four after.

Blakeman said that’s probably not the end of the activity. Several more small quakes will likely register in the area throughout Wednesday.

But there’s no cause for alarm for communities along the coast.

“These quakes are almost 300 miles off the coast, and that’s why they’re not really felt by people. It’s also why they’re not dangerous,” he said. “They’re just too far away, basically.”

Related: By air and by bike, Northwest civilian pilots and cyclists rehearse delivering aid after ‘The Big One’