Alone in a storage area on the fourth floor of Bracken Library, Joan Dutour witnessed an event fit for the movie "Poltergeist."
The Archives and Special Collections technician said she had just stepped through the storage area's doorway around noon when she saw book shelves swaying back and forth on their own.
"It was like one of those haunted houses," Dutour said. "It was like something big and heavy was running down the stack area. I couldn't even imagine what it was."
But Connie Sacksteder, supervisor of the office of the dean of the Teachers College, said she had no doubt that an earthquake was the cause of her computer's shaking and squeaking on the 10th floor of TC.
Sacksteder said a small earthquake had rocked her office three years ago, preparing her for Tuesday's tremors.
"When this one (earthquake) happened, I was sure I knew what it was," Sacksteder said. "You could feel it so much better. It's the weirdest sensation because you're doubting what you're feeling. You're like, 'Is this building really moving?'"
Sacksteder said the shaking lasted 45 seconds to a minute.
According to reports from the United States Geological Survey, the tremors felt throughout Muncie were the result of a magnitude five earthquake centered 10 miles northwest of Evansville at 12:37 p.m.
No injuries or major damage were reported.
Alan Samuelson, chairman of the geology department at Ball State University, said Tuesday's earthquake was the largest in Indiana since a 1909 earthquake in Terre Haute.
Samuelson said midwestern earthquakes typically have their epicenters in Illinois, Kentucky and Ohio.
"This is one of the biggest ones where the epicenter was in Indiana in the last century," Samuelson said.
Indiana's fault lines are part of the Wabash Valley Fault System. They parallel the Wabash river and cause small earthquakes every several years, Samuelson said.
Samuelson said Indiana might experience a magnitude six or seven earthquake every 10,000 years.
Major earthquakes do not rock Indiana as much as the west coast because the midwest sits in the middle of a tectonic plate, whereas the west coast sits along an active plate border.
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