COLUMBIA CITY, A magnitude 3.0 earthquake shook the St. Helens and Columbia City area at 7:25 a.m. Thursday, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. No damage was reported.
The USGS placed the epicenter about 2 miles west of Columbia City at a depth of 24 kilometers, roughly 15 miles down. By Thursday afternoon, 102 people had told the agency’s Did You Feel It? survey that they felt it, and the reports averaged out to weak shaking: enough to notice, not enough to knock anything over.
Quakes this size are not unusual here. USGS records show a magnitude 3.1 quake about 2 miles southwest of Deer Island on Nov. 24, 2023, a magnitude 2.7 about 7 miles west of Deer Island in July 2023, and a magnitude 2.9 just east of Deer Island in January 2014. All were at similar depths. Those four are the only quakes of magnitude 2.5 or larger that the USGS has recorded in the St. Helens, Columbia City and Deer Island area since 2000.
Felt an earthquake? The USGS collects reports at earthquake.usgs.gov/data/dyfi. The reports help seismologists map how shaking spreads, and they feed the ShakeAlert warning system Oregon residents can receive on their phones.