Small and deep, the quake at 9.32pm registered just 2.6 in magnitude and was measured at a depth of 10km.

Regardless, people reported feeling the quake as far afield as Bega and Tathra to the south, and Tilba and Bermagui to the north-east.

In Bega, this reporter experienced it as a loud thump and vibration in the floor of my house.

Many other residents of Quaama and surrounds too to social media to share their own experiences.

On Facebook's Quaama Community Notice Board page, while some in the village were oblivious it had occurred, others described it as sounding like "thunder", "an explosion", and even one person who "thought it was a wombat banging on the wall".

A spokesman for Geoscience Australia said at that depth and magnitude, many people may not have noticed much at all.

"At 10km depth it would only have been a very slight disturbance.

"Some might describe it as a train rumbling past or a bit of a jolt.

"If it had been shallower then there would have been hundreds of 'felt reports' rather than the 60 or so we've received," the spokesman said.

The Geoscience Australia spokesman explained how quakes such as Tuesday night's occur in a country that sits entirely on its own tectonic plate.

"It's when the tectonic plates on the east of Australia and the west are pushing together. They move a few centimetres a year.

"Imagine a sheet of paper on your table. If you place your hands on either edge of the paper and start moving them together, that bump is where the earthquake happens.

"It can pop up anywhere, and this time it happened to pop up under you."

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Stations that measured the earthquake included those based at Mila, Canberra (in the Parliament House basement) and Sydney, which recorded the seismic activity around 10.33, meaning it took the tremors an hour to cover that distance.

The Far South Coast earthquake comes just days after Victoria shook with its strongest ever recorded, with a 5.0 quake and subsequent 3.6 aftershock near the Great Ocean Road on Sunday, October 22.

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