Possible 'Ice Quake' in Brainerd area lake Minnesota

This is a new one on me. I have NEVER heard of an Ice Quake before. Anyone here heard of one?

Ice Quake on the lake after loud boom and tremor

Shortly after 7 p.m. Jan. 13, Jodi Schwen was watching television at her Gull Lake home when she and husband Kent heard a loud boom and felt the earth move.

"It was the deepest rumbling under the house," Jodi Schwen said. "I've never been in an earthquake but that's how I imagine it would feel."

The sound was so pronounced, they immediately went outside thinking a home may have been destroyed in a gas explosion.

It was not until this past weekend that they took a closer look along the shore and discovered damage to structures and the landscape. A sidewalk on the elder Schwens' property is pushed up and broken in several places and sand on a nearby beach is mounded up where it's normally flat. A boathouse next door appears to have shifted from its foundation and previously straight trees are protruding at odd angles.

"It just looked like a bomb went off underground," Jodi Schwen said.

Kevin Huyck, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Duluth, checked the seismic records with U.S. Geological Survey for Jan. 13. No earth tremor or earthquake was recorded in the area. Although rare, earthquakes can occur in Minnesota. Huyck said it's exceedingly unusual for a Minnesota earthquake, which tends to be weak, to damage structures.

Another possibility for what the Schwen family experienced is cryoseism, or an ice quake. In 2008, one of these quakes was reported on Lake Mendota in Madison, Wis., according to a news release from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. University employees in buildings along the shore felt shaking and the event registered on a seismometer in the geology department.

"Ice quakes, usually accompanied by loud cracking noises, are caused by large shifts in ice and are most commonly triggered by drastic temperature changes," the release states.

These events are rare and have the potential to cause damage, although whether this can explain the damage to the shoreline on Gull Lake is unclear.

Simply incredible! I'd never heard of this phenomenon before. I almost want to see it up close just to experience it. I know it makes me a nutter, but I find this so fascinating! I'm honestly tongue tied on this one.

Well, I have seen ice crack and make a rumbling noise but have never seen it mound sand or hurt anything on shore. I can't imagine an ice quake doing what you described. I know it can screw up a dock or push a big ice up the shore though. I've heard the ice crack maybe a half a dozen times. I'm not saying this wasn't an ice quake, only that I have never seen any damage like that from one up here in the U.P.

originally posted by: rickymouse
Well, I have seen ice crack and make a rumbling noise but have never seen it mound sand or hurt anything on shore. I can't imagine an ice quake doing what you described. I know it can screw up a dock or push a big ice up the shore though. I've heard the ice crack maybe a half a dozen times. I'm not saying this wasn't an ice quake, only that I have never seen any damage like that from one up here in the U.P.

I have to go Youtubing. Maybe someone has video.

It's awesome and scary at the same time. I admit to having some difficulty in understanding how these ice quakes come about though. I've lived on the east coast and have seen ice crack and break off in large 15 foot high chunks in Northumberland Strait. This seems to be quite different.

a reply to: Anyafaj

That YouTube video from Fox 11 News is pretty neat. I live about 40 miles from Fond du Lac County. Last year was a very strange winter. I could see that happening around here. We get bitter cold, then a few days later unseasonably warm, goes back and forth, sometimes in the space of hours. I have seen ice do some pretty weird things on our lakes.

I've lived up north for most of my adult life and a good part of my childhood. I STILL have never heard this happen, seen it happen, or even heard of it occurring. Mother Nature is freaky weird, sometimes in a good way, sometimes in a "Dude! That's messed up!" way. LOL

a reply to: Anyafaj

Those would be frost quakes, not what I was thinking of which would be the ice on a lake cracking. I haven't heard any frost quakes, they probably get muffled by the snow around here. The ground here doesn't really freeze very deep when the snow covers it. It does go down pretty deep where they plow driveways and roads though. I suppose that is what breaks the sewer and water lines around here.

Infrasound and air pressure? Time-space changes???