Colorado Earthquake Shakes New Castle and Silt

Some residents in Garfield County around New Castle and Silt were a little shaky Monday (January 30), but it wasn't because of a wild weekend. Those shakes came from an earthquake.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) reports the earthquake occurred at 1:46 p.m. Monday. The USGS says the epicenter of the 3.3 magnitude quake was 3.1 miles south of New Castle and approximately 3 miles under the earth's surface.

There were reports to the USGS from people who felt the quake in and around New Castle and Silt. The area also had a 2.9 magnitude earthquake on December 25, 2016.

Other recent seismic activity includes a 2.5 magnitude quake reported on January 24, 2017, about 18 miles West-Southwest of Snowmass Village and Northwest of Marble.

The Post Independent reported that following the earthquake in the New Castle area on Christmas Day, citizen activist groups asked Colorado oil and gas regulators to analyze recent earthquakes, to see if injection wells caused the earthquakes. A spokesperson for the National Earthquake Information Center deemed that unlikely.

There can always be another reason people feel the earth move and we can thank Carole King and James Taylor for writing a song about it.