Buzzard’s Bay earthquake felt in CT

An earthquake off southern Massachusetts, felt Sunday morning as far west in Connecticut as Bridgeport and Prospect, is not uncommon in the area, according to a Yale seismologist.

Centered in Buzzard’s Bay, the tremor was first classified as a 4.6 on the Richter Scale, which was lowered to 4.2, then reduced again to 3.6.

“In a way, this was a fairly typical earthquake for New England,” Yale seismologist Maureen Long said Sunday. “We’re not located on a plate boundary. We’re not prone to large earthquakes like California or Alaska.”

Long, a Cheshire resident, said she did not feel the 9:10 a.m. tremor. Her brother-in-law, who lives in Massachusetts, texted her after being shaken.

Residents of Bethel and Prospect reported feeling the ground shake. Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim tweeted around 9:30 a.m. to ask residents if they had felt the shaking. A few minutes later, he confirmed the tremor was felt in the Park City.

“It was felt pretty widely,” Long said.

The U.S. Geological Survey reports the earthquake hit 15.1 kilometers below the earth’s surface at 9:10 a.m.

Even at the original 4.6 on the Richter Scale, Sunday’s quake was not the strongest reported in the Northeast. The Richter Scale ranks earthquakes on a scale of 1 to 10 based on damage, which each magnitude 10 times worse than the one below.

In August 2011, a magnitude 5.8 earthquake centered in Virginia “was felt very widely,” Long said.

“We do experience earthquakes here in New England,” Long said. “Most are small to moderate and don’t do significant damage.”

The strongest in history, Long said, occurred in 1755 in Cape Ann, Mass. Today’s scientists estimate it was a magnitude 6 or greater on the Richter Scale.

“If it was an earthquake that size,” Long said, “we’re getting in to zone where we would expect damage.”

Should a damage-causing tremor hit, Long recommended residents move under a table or other safe structure and “hold on.”

Although it could happen, “I’m a seismologist,” Long said, “and I don’t wake up every morning worried about earthquakes.”