On Jan. 27, a 3.8-magnitude earthquake struck approximately six miles south of York Harbor in Maine. It ran approximately eight miles deep but caused no fatalities or damage. The earthquake was the fifth largest in the state’s history, the strongest being a 4.7 magnitude earthquake in 2012, and the second-strongest a 4.5 magnitude in 1987. 

According to Maine’s Geological Survey, the earthquake reached areas throughout southeastern New England including Boston, Worcester and Lowell, Massachusetts; Hanover, New Hampshire and Providence, Rhode Island. Some members of the Waltham community also felt the earthquake tremors, given the city’s proximity to Worcester. The United States Geological Survey’s ShakeMap estimates that the Boston area generally experienced “weak” seismic activity. 

USGS’ tectonic summary explains that earthquakes in the central and eastern parts of the United States are less frequent than earthquakes in the west, but they are felt over larger regions. More specifically, an earthquake east of the Rocky Mountains can be experienced over an area “as much as ten times larger” than that of a similar magnitude earthquake on the West Coast. For West Coast earthquakes, experts can typically determine which exact faults are responsible. However, New England and Long Island are not close to the nearest plate boundaries in the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea; thus, faults in the east are not well-located and cannot be linked to any earthquake origins. 

Earthquakes in the east, particularly in New England, are more widespread due to the region’s type of earth crest. New England’s earth crest facilitates a “seismic wave to transmit over really far distances,” Alex Hatem from USGS said. Time reports that this earthquake was felt as far as Pennsylvania. 

As of press time, two weaker earthquakes have taken place near York Harbor since Jan. 27, each with a magnitude of 2.0. The first took place on Jan 29, six miles southeast of York Harbor, and the second on Feb. 2, eight miles southeast.