“Contrary to what you may have heard, there is no new data predicting a large earthquake in eastern Connecticut,” stated Dawn McKenzie, Regional Coordinator at the United States Geological Survey. “We recommend only the usual awareness at this time.” The 2022 annual report from the Geological Survey does forecast significant seismological activity for eastern Connecticut in 2023, but it refrains from ringing alarm bells. Nevertheless, news outlets have begun raising the temperature on the issue. How sturdy is YOUR house?
One would assume that because the closest plate boundary is in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, earthquake danger here would be minimal. Yet old faults run through our local area, ancient weak or broken spots in earth’s crust. Seismologists point out a bedrock fault line corresponding to our latest series of regular but mostly unfelt shakes, the northern border of a gneiss formation known as the Willimantic Dome. The 2022 seismological study picked up thousands of micro-tremors along that general line from east to west.“There have always been earthquakes in New England,” McKenzie continued. “The most memorable was the 1755 Cape Ann quake, with a magnitude of 6.2 on the Richter Scale, which damaged hundreds of buildings in Boston.”
Crane family lore recounts this enormous erratic boulder near Wolf Rock in Mansfield being in one piece until the dramatic earthquake of 1791.Moodus, CT. has been an earthquake hot spot. Another dramatic seismic event (4.5–5) there in 1791 collapsed homes and was felt as far away as Boston and New York. The town’s Indian name, Machimoodus, means “the place of bad noises,” a clue to the subterranean rumbling residents have heard there for centuries. There have been 115 earthquakes in modern Connecticut history strong enough to be felt. Most of the tectonic activity here occurs within a mile of the surface. Many of the old stone walls in our area have sections that tumbled down from that 1791 quake.
Lio Moon Stinnett, Professor of Geophysical Science at UConn, postulates that the vigorous movement could be the result of six years of drought impact on the water table plus this winter’s lack of snowpack together generating increased subterranean lift, or from the 2011 and 2015 Connecticut quake clusters causing delayed stress between shallow rock formations, or both. A third theory is simply post-Ice Age rebounding of the earth’s crust, which has been occurring since the Wisconsin glacier receded 12,000 years ago. Changes in the shape of the crust due to that uplifting could initiate stress in unexpected locations.“There has been an almost continuous buildup of these tiny shakes since January,” continued Stinnett, “and they are getting stronger. Haven’t you felt any yet? It is generally agreed that a cluster of small earthquakes is a harbinger of a potentially hazardous one – somewhere in the UConn locale. Personally, I’m more than a bit uncomfortable about our near future.”
George Jacobi Excerpted from Willimantic Comical, April 1, 2023
Most interesting George. We felt one on Cape Cod just a couple of weeks ago. Having also lived in New York City, San Francisco and the U.S. Virgin Islands, where we experienced earthquakes in all of those locations, there’s no reason my beloved CT should escape the shakes.
P.S.: I am not the expert Dawn McKenzie quoted in this article.
It seems that CT has more of an earthquake risk than most state residents appreciate. But at least it‘s not as bad as Seattle where I live. WA state recently reported that there is a 5-7% chance that there will be a major earthquake in downtown Seattle within the next 50 years. A slippage of the Seattle Fault could cause tsunami waves that hit the city in 3 minutes and inundate it in 20’ of water. Maybe I should move back to CT! 😯