SMALL QUAKE RATTLES ILLINOIS, KENTUCKY

A minor earthquake rattled Southern Illinois and Western Kentucky Monday, the four-year anniversary of an earthquake that shook Southeast Missouri into earthquake hysteria.

The new director of the Center for Earthquake Studies at Southeast Missouri State University said the earthquake Monday was typical seismic activity and shouldn't be considered a sign "the big one" is on the way.

Director Haydar Al-Shukri, who has been on the job in Cape Girardeau for one month, said most callers to the center Monday asked if the earthquake indicates a larger quake is coming.

"This size of earthquake is not an uncommon event," Al-Shukri said. "There is no indication of abnormal seismic behavior. Small earthquakes happen almost daily. It just happens that this one we felt."

Al-Shukri said people felt the quake in much of northwestern Kentucky and Southern Illinois. He received a few reports from Southeast Missouri, including Cape Girardeau.

No damage was reported, but none would be expected for an earthquake of this magnitude, he said.

The U.S. Geological Survey in Golden, Colo., said the quake Monday measured magnitude 3.6 on the Richter Scale.

But earthquake officials in St. Louis and Paducah registered the quake between 3.4 and 3.5. Al-Shukri said the lower figures likely are more accurate because measurements are taken closer to the epicenter.

The quake occurred at 9:23 a.m. and had an epicenter about 10 miles northeast of Wickliffe, Ky. and 15 miles southwest of Paducah, Ky.

While Monday's earthquake isn't a predictor that a larger earthquake is on the way, earthquake officials agree a chance always exist for a large earthquake along the New Madrid fault.

On Sept. 26, 1990, a 4.6 quake shook much of Southeast Missouri, touching off an earthquake frenzy fueled by the late Iben Browning's prediction of a larger quake to come.

Browning, a climatologist, said chances were 50-50 that a major earthquake would occur along the New Madrid Fault in the first week of December 1990. Browning based his forecast on a study of tidal forces.

Residents prepared survival kits, some left town, schools canceled classes and news media invaded New Madrid in preparation of the forecasted quake. The fault didn't move.

Waverly Person, chief of the Geological Survey's information center, said he was unsure which fault Monday's earthquake had occurred on but it likely wasn't on the nearby New Madrid Fault.

The 150-mile-long fault zone zigzags from Cairo, Ill., southwest through New Madrid, Mo., to Marked Tree, Ark. In the winter of 1811-1812, the faults generated three great quakes with magnitudes later estimated at 8.1 to 8.3 or more. They changed the course of the Mississippi River, killed several dozen people and cracked pavement as far away as New York City.

A quake of magnitude 2.5 to 3 is the smallest generally felt by people. A quake of magnitude 4 can cause slight damage in areas without strict building codes.

Linda Engebretson, meteorologist with the National Weather Service at Paducah, was the only person in her office to feel the earthquake.

The office is in a double-wide mobile home. Engebretson said the trailer tends to vibrate when the wind gusts. At first she attributed the vibration to wind.

"But I looked at wind gust recorder and thought `That's not fast enough to shake the trailer,'" she said.

A few minutes later, the office started receiving phone calls from people wondering if they had felt an earthquake.

Engebretson had never felt an earthquake before. "I said, `what the heck was that.'"

But she wasn't scared. "It was just weird."

A spokesman for the Pulaski County Sheriff's Department said several people felt the quake, but no damage was reported.

"We felt it here," the spokesman said. "We could feel it shake."

A spokesman for the Alexander County Sheriff's Department said he had received several calls about the earthquake. "Some of the people in the courthouse did feel it," he said. "But not me."

Some information for this article was provided by the Associated Press.