A 2.9-magnitude earthquake in Chicago was recorded in Lake Michigan off Chicago's northern suburbs on Wednesday afternoon, and people in Evanston, Deerfield, Kenilworth, Waukegan, and Chicago's South Side said they felt it. The U.S. Geological Survey placed the quake about 20 kilometers east-northeast of Kenilworth, Illinois, at approximately 2:38 p.m.
Preliminary data from the National Weather Service suggested the event may be one of only two reported in Lake Michigan in the last 100 years. No reports of damage had come in by Wednesday afternoon.
Lake Michigan east of Kenilworth
The quake's location put it roughly 12.5 miles from Kenilworth, Illinois, in open water rather than onshore. That mattered for the people who noticed it most quickly: shore communities received the shaking, while the lake itself absorbed the origin point.
Preliminary data also pointed to a rare pattern. A second 2.9-magnitude earthquake had been reported on Aug. 2, 2024, and the Wednesday event may have been only the other reported Lake Michigan quake in the past century.
Suzan Van Der Lee on rare quakes
Suzan Van Der Lee, a Northwestern University professor and Earth scientist, said the Chicago area is not in an active earthquake zone or on active fault lines. She said earthquakes can happen in the middle of tectonic plates on a much less frequent basis, and that any fault lines under Lake Michigan would be hundreds of millions, if not billions, of years old.
Van Der Lee said aftershocks were possible, but they would likely be too soft for people to feel. She added that people on shore likely could have noticed the earthquake, while people boating on the lake probably would have had no idea.
Chicago shoreline after the shaking
Van Der Lee also said folks along the lakefront do not have to worry about a tsunami. For residents who felt the quake from Evanston to Chicago's South Side, the practical question is simple: the ground movement was real, but the immediate response remains watchful rather than urgent.
What caused the 2.9-magnitude earthquake in Lake Michigan remains the open question, and there had been no damage reports by Wednesday afternoon.
