Prince George, BC – A magnitude 7.5 earthquake rattled the northern west coast overnight…

The US Geological Survey says the quake hit 152-kilometres northwest of the Dixon entrance, approximately 300-kilometres west-northwest of Prince Rupert, and 397-kilometres west-northwest of Terrace, just before 1am local time.

The West Coast/Alaska Tsunami Warning Centre issued a tsunami warning for the southern Alaska and coastal British Columbia from the Washington-BC border to the northern tip of Vancouver Island.  The warning was cancelled at 3:16am pacific time this morning.

A strong aftershock, measuring 5.4 hit 120-kilometres northwest of the Dixon entrance at 4:28am local time, but it did not pose a tsunami danger, acording to the Warning Centre.

Earthquake Canada says the first quake is likely associated with "relative motion across the Queen Charlotte fault system offshore" of the BC coast.  The agency says the surrounding area of that plate boundary has hosted eight earthquakes of magnitude 6 or greater over the past 40-years.  It also notes, the quake, "is related to that Haida Gwaii earthquake three months previously, and is an expression of deformation along the same plate boundary system."