USGS is reporting that a weak earthquake rattled central Massachusetts during the overnight hours. At 12:31 am from a depth of only 5.1 km, the magnitude 1.7 earthquake struck near the town of Westminster in the central part of the state north of Worcester.
USGS says that 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.
Today’s earthquake comes on the heels of a series of earthquakes that have rattled New Jersey and the New York City metro area; USGS says there is no direct relationship with these earthquakes.
However, today’s earthquake did strike about 2 miles away from a July 20 earthquake that rattled nearby Hubbardston. These two earthquakes are the only ones recorded in Massachusetts over the last 30 days.
According to USGS, people in New England have felt small earthquakes and suffered damage from infrequent larger ones since colonial times. Moderately damaging earthquakes strike somewhere in the region every few decades, and smaller earthquakes are felt roughly twice a year. The Boston area was damaged three times within 28 years in the middle 1700’s, and New York City was damaged in 1737 and 1884. The largest known New England earthquakes occurred in 1638 with a magnitude 6.5 in Vermont or New Hampshire, and in 1755 when a magnitude 5.8 earthquake struck offshore from Cape Ann northeast of Boston. That Cape Ann earthquake caused severe damage to the Boston waterfront.
The most recent New England earthquake to cause moderate damage occurred in 1940 in central New Hampshire; it was a magnitude 5.6 earthquake.
Earthquakes in the central and eastern U.S., although less frequent than in the western U.S., are typically felt over a much broader region. East of the Rockies, an earthquake can be felt over an area as much as ten times larger than a similar magnitude earthquake on the west coast. A magnitude 4.0 eastern U.S. earthquake typically can be felt at many places as far as 60 miles from where it occurred, and it infrequently causes damage near its source. A magnitude 5.5 eastern U.S. earthquake usually can be felt as far as 300 miles from where it occurred, and sometimes causes damage as far away as 25 miles.
