Rhode Island was rattled by a weak earthquake during the overnight hours. According to USGS, at 11:36 pm last night, a weak magnitude 1.8 earthquake struck the central shore near Narragansett from a depth of 9.4 km. While it was weak and late in the evening, more than a dozen people reached out to USGS via their web reporting tool to let them know they felt and/or heard it.

According to USGS, earthquakes with a magnitude of 2.0 or less are rarely felt or heard by people, but once they exceed 2.0 , more and more people can feel them. While damage is possible with magnitude 3.0 events or greater, significant damage and casualties usually don’t occur until the magnitude of a seismic event rises to a 5.5 or greater rated event.

The last earthquake to strike in Rhode Island was three years ago; that magnitude 1.6 earthquake struck near Portsmouth.

Rhode Island’s past earthquake history includes notable events like the strong 1638 quake felt across New England, a 4.6 magnitude event in 1951 near Westerly, and a 2.3 magnitude quake in Providence in 2015, with smaller tremors also recorded. While not located on a major fault line, Rhode Island is in the interior of the North American Plate, leading to seismic activity from deep crustal faults.

The magnitude of the 1638 earthquake isn’t known, but  was considered to be a  strong earthquake which rattled much of the  New England colonies, with reports from Native Americans indicating similar shaking events had occurred four times in the preceding 80 years.

While there have been no other earthquakes in Rhode Island lately, there have been a total of 16 earthquakes recorded in and around New England and adjacent eastern Canada over the last 30 days. An earthquake struck New Hampshire last week and  a more significant magnitude 2.6 quake struck off the central coast of Maine the day prior.  It is unlikely that those events are directly related to this latest Rhode Island earthquake.