Our view: Surviving the 'great' quake of '12

Opinion

Discussion

The Salem News has a real-name policy for commenting. Users may sign in using the Facebook Connect tool above the comments field. Once your first comment is posted by a moderator, all future comments will post automatically. If you prefer not to use Facebook, send an e-mail with your comments user name (which must be the same as your real name), city or town, street address and daytime phone number to comments@salemnews.com. A staff member will contact you directly to confirm your identity. It may take a day or two before you can post comments. Only your user name will be public. All users are required to follow our rules for commenting, which can be found here.

comments powered by Disqus

October 19, 2012

Our view: Surviving the 'great' quake of '12

Anonymous The Salem News The Salem News Fri Oct 19, 2012, 05:00 AM EDT

It was just after 7 p.m. Tuesday when, across New England, the ground began to shake.

Residents all across the North Shore felt the movement — a more violent, more prolonged shaking than that we feel when a big tractor-trailer rolls down the street.

No sooner had we in the newsroom begun to realize what had happened than did the phones start to ring. Readers were calling in to see if others had experienced what they had.

Earthquake? Here in New England?

It turns out that lesser quakes are fairly common in these parts. But one the size of the 4.0 on the Richter scale temblor that hit Tuesday night is more rare. According to a geologist interviewed by The Associated Press, the quake was the biggest in New England since a magnitude-4.2 tremor in October 2006 hit Maine’s Mount Desert Island.

Unlike California, where bigger quakes are common, New England is far from continental plate boundaries. The nearest are in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and in the Caribbean. But here the bedrock is older and easier to fracture. Geologists say that means a quake here is felt over a wider area that one of the same size in California.

Fortunately, there have been no reports of injuries or significant damage from the earthquake, so it’s easier to laugh. A headline in the Los Angeles Times read: “You call that an earthquake? Maine has 4.0 shaker, is fine.”

There have been larger earthquakes in New England’s history, and they have been devastating. The most famous was a quake estimated at 6.0 to 6.3 off the coast of Cape Ann in 1755. The shaking destroyed several buildings in Boston and was felt as far away as South Carolina.

Yes, we are fine — and fortunate. Many who felt the shaking of the 4.0 earthquake Tuesday are not keen to experience anything significantly larger.