4.0‘ Qquake Centered Between Upper Green And Bondurant
Tosi Creek Basin gets a rattle Tuesday night
by Joy Ufford

One of my pet peeves is not waking up during the occasional earthquakes that have rumbled western Wyoming in the past 22 years that I’ve lived here. It happened again Tuesday night – I slept through another earthquake. At 11:23 p.m., this quake had a magnitude of 4.0, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and was centered 12 miles northeast of Bondurant in Tosi Creek Basin. The quake, not on a mapped fault, was reported to the USGS “Did You Feel It?” survey by people from Jackson, Moran, Dubois, Wilson – and one person in Bondurant, according to Seth Wittke, Wyoming Geological Survey (WGS) hazards geologist. “It was out in the middle of no where,” Wittke said, “west of the Upper Green in Tosi Creek Basin, just east of Hodges Peak” in the Gros Ventres.

More specifically, the quake’s epicenter was 12 miles northeast of Bondurant, 26 miles east of Hoback Junction and 28 miles east-southeast of Jackson and Rafter J. Its depth was calculated to be about 3.1 miles deep with a horizontal movement estimated at 2.3 miles, according to USGS data.

While Wittke described it as “the middle of no where,” the basin’s location on the Upper Green side of the Gros Ventres apparently helped transmit shock waves to people living up around Kendall Valley, about 10 miles from the epicenter.

Kristi Citrola, who lives on the Upper Green with her family, said, “our whole house shook.” “All the neighbors on the Upper Green felt it,” she said. “It was enough to wake you up. Everybody that’s behind us toward the forest felt it. The whole house just shook.” Nothing was damaged, she said. “The woodpiles were rattling on the deck but it stayed put,” Citrola added.

Her husband John called KPIN Radio to let them know “it shook his house pretty good” and several people responded to a Pinedale Online request for information Wednesday.

Apparently, not many people in the Bondurant area Tuesday night even knew it happened.

Carolyn Fisk,who lives in a motor home in Bondurant, said she didn’t feel a thing. When she went to work at the Elkhorn Trading Post Wednesday morning, though, an upstairs tenant told her “he felt it and it woke him up,” Fisk said.

“He said there was an earthquake in San Francisco about the same time and wondered if they were connected,” she said. “I was sound asleep.”

No one at Sleeping Indian Outfitters, near the Elkhorn, noticed anything unusual either, reported Paul Crittenden.

Two miles closer to the epicenter at the Little Jennie Ranch, Rusty Endecott said she didn’t feel a thing and hadn’t heard anything from the ranch hands about it.

“I was sound asleep,” she said. “Nothing fell or anything; everything’s still working. I went out like a light last night.”

Festus Krause of Kendall Valley said he was working in Sand Draw but “the wife says no” about noticing the quake although she was still up.

“A friend of mine from Rock Springs mentioned it though,” Krause said. “He was asleep in his truck and said he felt an earthquake last night.”

Interestingly, Krause’s friend was in Wamsutter, many miles from this corner of the state.

Sunday at 7:35 a.m., a 3.0-magnitude earthquake, 2.5 miles deep, was registered by USGS equipment 13 miles east of Jackson, 14 miles east of Rafter J and “straight north of Bondurant,” Wittke said.

“There were no ‘felt’ reports on that one (in Jackson),” he said.

There isn’t enough information available to determine if the two are connected although neither is on a “mapped fault,” he said. Various seismic stations in the greater Yellowstone area record earth movements and when seismic energy from an earthquake passes through the instruments, a quake’s magnitude can be determined from the signals, Wittke explained.

A quake measuring 3.5 or less is usually not felt but will be recorded and a quake ranging from 3.5 to 5.4 is often felt but rarely causes damage, according to the USGS Web site.

To report the effects of an earthquake or to find frequently updated earthquake information around the world, log on to http://earthquake.usgs.gov.