A revised moment magnitude catalog of eastern Canada's largest earthquakes

Although there are many scales used to calculate earthquake magnitude, moment magnitude is currently considered the preferred magnitude scale for use in seismic hazard assessment in Canada. Historically, moment magnitude was not determined for eastern Canadian earthquakes although it has been routinely calculated for earthquakes of approximately magnitude 4.0 and greater, on regional magnitude scales, for the last decade. Thus, most moment magnitudes for eastern Canadian earthquakes must be obtained by converting from another magnitude scale or from felt information. This paper provides a moment magnitude catalog for the largest earthquakes in eastern Canada and vicinity. The study derives moment magnitudes for some events but also makes use of values from the published literature. Earthquakes are assessed individually using all available sources of information. The resulting catalog provides moment magnitudes for 254 events. Three additional events were evaluated but removed from the catalog as it is highly questionable whether they were earthquakes.