The United States Geological Survey, National Earthquake Information Center, reported that a strong earthquake occurred about 250 miles south-southwest of Apalachicola, Florida at 10:56 am on Sept. 10 2006. The quake was centered beneath the Gulf of Mexico, well distant from the nearest active plate boundary. This is the largest of more than a dozen shocks that have been instrumentally recorded from the eastern Gulf of Mexico in the past three decades, and it is the most widely felt.