{"id":622403,"date":"2026-04-23T02:52:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T02:52:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/622403\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T02:52:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T02:52:18","slug":"string-of-industry-related-earthquakes-strike-north-of-edmonton-edmonton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/622403\/","title":{"rendered":"String of industry-related earthquakes strike north of Edmonton – Edmonton"},"content":{"rendered":"

People living north of Edmonton say over the past three weeks, they\u2019ve felt their houses move and the ground shake due to numerous earthquakes.<\/p>\n

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Experts say it\u2019s happening more often in that area, and they have a pretty good idea why.<\/p>\n

Kalle Macdonald has lived in Sturgeon County,<\/a> near Gibbons, for 30 years. But on April 1, he experienced something he had never felt before \u2014 an earthquake.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not like they\u2019re shaking the whole house apart or anything like that, but these are loud and disruptive,\u201d said Macdonald.<\/p>\n

And it wasn\u2019t just one. Macdonald has experienced dozens over the past three weeks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey can happen in the middle of the night, they can happen in the day,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s not so much the damage they do or anything like that. It\u2019s just the nuisance of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Alberta Energy Regulator\u2019s website lists more than 30 earthquake events in that area. All of them are considered \u201cknown induced,\u201d meaning they didn\u2019t happen naturally.<\/p>\n

It also notes that between January and March 2025, they recorded 862 seismic activities across the province. From January to March 2026, there were 1,520.<\/p>\n

Earthquakes Canada has detected seven earthquakes of a magnitude of 2.5 or higher and says they\u2019re all industry-related. Three earthquakes had magnitudes greater than 4.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"The<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tThe Alberta Energy Regulator\u2019s website lists more than 30 earthquake events in the past month.\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tGlobal News\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I looked through the seismic record, there were very few earthquakes in this area. Really, most of the earthquakes we\u2019ve recorded have been in the past three weeks,\u201d said Stephen Crane, a seismologist with Natural Resources Canada.<\/p>\n

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\u201cHow you feel an earthquake is very dependent on the size of the earthquake and how far you are away from the epicentre. Certainly, for larger events, you can feel them very strongly. Generally, we don\u2019t start to see damage from earthquakes until the earthquakes reach a magnitude of about five or larger.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Get<\/p>\n

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Get breaking Canada news delivered to your inbox as it happens so you won’t miss a trending story.<\/p>\n

Alberta\u2019s Ministry of Environment and Protected Areas tells Global News the seismic events were reported by Shell Canada, and are connected to their Scotford Upgrader and the related CO2 injection site operations to the AER.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMore on Environment
\n\t\t\tMore videos\n\t\t<\/p>\n

They say Shell has implemented protocols to monitor and mitigate the impact.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is Shell\u2019s obligation to return the injection well to a safe state prior to resuming operations, which may involve changing injection thresholds or proposing new mitigation measures,\u201d read the statement.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Click<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t1:51
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRegulator defends finding that Alberta\u2019s largest earthquake was caused by oilpatch\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Energy and Minerals Minister Brian Jean says industry-related quakes are a serious issue for the province.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWhen it does happen, we get reports on it, and we have to make changes accordingly, either based on the technology that\u2019s been used or the operator. We do that, and we are very diligent and closely supervise those situations,\u201d Jean said.<\/p>\n

The Alberta Energy Regulator says this may not be the last of activities in Sturgeon County.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a possibility for further earthquakes, however we would expect earthquake activity associated with this event to decrease over the coming days,\u201d read the statement.<\/p>\n

Macdonald hopes there isn\u2019t much he feels after that.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo go from what I can tell is zero earthquakes ever, to having 30 earthquakes or aftershocks in less than 30 days, is just bizarre. If someone\u2019s doing them, they can be stopped.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"People living north of Edmonton say over the past three weeks, they\u2019ve felt their houses move and the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":622404,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194294],"tags":[233490,209073,49,48,12645,23752,295,229183],"class_list":{"0":"post-622403","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edmonton","8":"tag-alberta-earthquakes","9":"tag-alberta-energy-regulator","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-canada","12":"tag-earthquake","13":"tag-edmonton","14":"tag-environment","15":"tag-sturgeon-county"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=622403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/622404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=622403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=622403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=622403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}