HILO, Hawai'i — A magnitude-4.7 earthquake centered beneath Kilauea volcano's east rift zone jolted the Big Island yesterday morning, and was followed by two smaller aftershocks.

Fire officials said they received no reports of damage from the earthquakes, but staff at the Volcano Store said the jolt of the first quake rattled a shelf of wine bottles hard enough to shake about two dozen off a shelf to break on the floor.

"I've been here 30 years, going on 31, and that's the first time things fell off the shelf and cracked like that," said Ron Onouye, manager of Volcano Store.

Big Island residents reported feeling the shaking from as far away as the Waimea and Kiholo areas. The strongest shaking was reported in the Volcano area, Ka'u and around Papa'ikou north of Hilo.

The U.S. Geological Survey's Hawaiian Volcano Observatory said the temblor was the largest in that particular area in at least the past 50 years. Since 1998, only a few earthquakes with magnitudes greater than 4.0 have occurred at shallow depths beneath the upper east rift zone.

Jim Kauahikaua, scientist in charge at the observatory, said the earthquakes are the largest so far in a flurry of mostly small and shallow earthquakes in the upper east and southwest rift zones that began May 12.

Large earthquakes or a series of quakes may signal changes in eruptions or new phases in volcanic activity, but Kauahikaua said it isn't clear yet what the latest series might foretell.

"We'd all like to know," Kauahikaua said. "We have people out looking for new cracking and trying to gather all the information we can."

Scientists saw a similar increase in seismicity early last year, but that series of earthquakes was accompanied by bulging or "surface deformation" as magma shifted and caused the summit area of the volcano to swell. The series of earthquakes in 2006 was not followed by any change in the eruption.

The recent earthquake flurry has not been accompanied by any unusual swelling of the summit or other signs of unusual summit activity, scientists said. "As far as we can tell, it's just seismicity, some pretty impressive earthquakes," Kauahikaua said.

The first earthquake at 9:13 a.m. was beneath the upper east rift zone of Kilauea volcano near Puhimau crater, and was about a mile deep.

A magnitude-4.1 aftershock followed at 9:33 a.m.

That quake was about a mile farther downrift beneath Koko'olau crater and was followed by a magnitude-3.9 temblor at 10:51 a.m.

Reach Kevin Dayton at kdayton@honoluluadvertiser.com.