What's shaking in Albany, NY?

Well, while I've been worrying about small earthquakes in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, you might have thought I'd forgotten about New York. Lo and behold, there have been seven small earthquakes near Albany in the last week. Belated fallout from the Eliot Spitzer affair? Who knows.

A list of the events from the LCSN web page is below. Each event is hot-linked to a more detailed report.

 MAG    DATE    LOCAL-TIME  LAT    LON   DEPTH  LOCATION
  y/m/d     h:m:s      deg    deg    km    from Albany

2.1  2009/02/23 10:46:20 42.574N 74.094W  7.0   19 mi SW
2.1  2009/02/21 02:30:43 42.569N 74.103W 11.0   20 mi SW
2.7  2009/02/20 13:04:19 42.572N 74.096W  8.0   19 mi SW
1.6  2009/02/19 09:22:58 42.573N 74.094W  8.0   19 mi SW
2.4  2009/02/18 11:20:23 42.572N 74.101W 10.0   20 mi SW
2.7  2009/02/17 22:41:50 42.570N 74.103W  9.0   20 mi SW
2.1  2009/02/17 09:33:26 42.571N 74.135W 16.0   21 mi SW

Here is part of a news account of one of these:

Earthquake triggers Gilboa dam inspection

Saturday, February 21, 2009

By Edward Munger Jr.
Gazette Reporter

SCHOHARIE — A small earthquake southeast of Albany Wednesday prompted an immediate inspection of the Gilboa Dam under new operating procedures put in place by the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, an engineer said Friday.

The earthquake was minor and didn’t cause any damage to the massive concrete structure that remains the focus of a multimillion-dollar construction project now in its first phase, said John H. Vickers, chief of western operations for the DEP.

According to the Lamont-Doherty Cooperative Seismographic Network, the magnitude 2.4 event took place at roughly 11:20 p.m. on Wednesday, centered roughly 32 miles southeast of Albany.

People in the vicinity of a magnitude 2.4 earthquake would feel minor shaking lasting two or three seconds, according to Won-Young Kim, senior research scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University in Palisades, NY.

The New York City DEP was notified and immediately dispatched inspectors to ensure there were no problems, as part of new standard operating procedure, Vickers said.

But I haven't seen any stories yet on the whole mini-swarm.