No, that wasn't Redoubt volcano that rocked Anchorage midday Tuesday.
A plain old earthquake of magnitude 4.6 shook Southcentral Alaska at 12:12 p.m., originating about 18 miles northeast of Anchorage, according to the Alaska Earthquake Information Center.
"I was sitting and I heard a loud, very loud, deep noise and at the same time I could hear all of my crystal dishes that are sitting on glass shelves in the cabinet rattling against each other," said Caroline Prosser, who lives just outside of Wasilla and ran for the doorway when the quake began.
The earthquake hit about 15 miles deep and was just on the cusp between what the Fairbanks-based earthquake center considers a "light" and a "moderate" quake, said research technician Tammy Viggato.
"Nobody's reporting any damage or anything like that. Severe shaking, maybe one thing falling off a shelf, but not too much," she said.
The tremor sent the needle of the Alaska Volcano Observatory's seismograph dancing and sent volcano watchers to their phones.
"We're getting quite a few calls," said seismologist Stephanie Prejean at the observatory. "Just people in the public who felt the earthquake and are wondering if that was an explosion at the volcano that they're feeling."
Nope.
Redoubt was still at alert level orange Tuesday afternoon, after dropping down from red the day before. It was emitting a small plume of ash and steam that was staying on the west side of Cook Inlet as of Tuesday, Prejean said.
"It's likely that a dome is still growing at the volcano and that can become unstable at any time, leading to an explosion," she said. "But we don't know the time scale over which that might happen."
Tuesday's earthquake wasn't as big as other recent tremors -- such as a 5.9 earthquake in the Kodiak Island region on March 30 -- but Viggato said more people felt it because it was so close to the city.
It was more than big and loud enough for Prosser.
"I haven't been frightened of an earthquake in decades," she said. "This one kind of shook me up a little bit."
