There was an earthquake off the coast of Maine on Monday morning and people across Connecticut reported feeling it.
There was an earthquake off the coast of Maine on Monday morning and people across Connecticut have reported feeling it.
The earthquake, a magnitude 3.8, happened near York Harbor, Maine, around 10:22 a.m.
The U.S. Geological Survey website has reports from residents from Thompson to Danbury that they felt it.
“Everything on my desk, my monitors and everything, started to rattle,” Aline Halle, of Fairfield, said.
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“I have three cats who came bolting at me and started pawing and meowing. And I'm like, ‘I think this is an earthquake,’” she said.
Ari Perez, an associate professor of civil engineering at Quinnipiac University, said the earthquake was about 16 to 18 miles underground.
“That is where the break occurred and then it spreads out like a ripple in a pond,” Perez said.
He said this 3.8 magnitude quake is comparable to the one we felt on April 5.
“If you remember, there was a lot of checking. ‘Hey, let’s make sure there was no measurable damage.’ But i don’t remember hearing any reports of huge, huge damage," Perez said.
While the earthquakes were similar in strength, Halle said last year's felt much stronger.
“I really felt the other more in the ground, coming up, and I felt it in my chair whereas this one, I saw things on my desk rattling,” she said.
The U.S.G.S. says while earthquakes in the central and eastern U.S. are less frequent than in the western part of the country, they are typically felt over a much broader region. An earthquake east of the Rockies can be felt over an area as much as 10 times larger than a similar magnitude earthquake on the West Coast.
Earthquakes happen on faults within bedrock, usually miles deep, according to U.S.G.S., but some New England earthquakes occur at shallower depths.
“Most of New England's and Long Island's bedrock was assembled as continents collided to form a supercontinent 500-300 million years ago, raising the northern Appalachian Mountains. The rest of the bedrock formed when the supercontinent rifted apart 200 million years ago to form what are now the northeastern U.S., the Atlantic Ocean, and Europe,” the U.S.G.S. state.
You can find the maps of towns were people felt the earthquake here.
There was an earthquake in Connecticut earlier this year.
There was a 1.8 magnitude earthquake new Moodus on Saturday, Jan. 18.