Earthquake felt in Acton

February 1, 2025

On Monday, Jan. 27, at 10:22am EST, an earthquake shook the seafloor offshore York, Maine, sending out shock waves that were felt throughout New England, including in Acton.

For the next two days, I asked every Actonian I met if they had felt the earthquake and I asked the same question on a couple of email lists. Perhaps 200 Actonians heard or saw my query, and about a dozen responded with their personal earthquake stories.

From Jude Aronstein: “I was sitting at my dining room table … Suddenly it felt like a wind blast kicked up and pummeled my house. I live on a hill and when it’s windy the whole house does shake and rattle. I looked up and the trees were still. …I also heard what sounded like a small pebble drop onto the wood floor in the back room… The next day, I found two pieces of plaster above the sink, 1 inch and a half inch.”

From Susan Cudmore: “Our washing machine normally shakes my office when it is spinning. I was not doing laundry at the time and thought maybe my partner had started laundry in the morning before he left for work. The rumble I experienced felt exactly like the washing machine spinning.”

From Diane Baum: “I was working from home when the whole house began to vibrate. My immediate reaction was that there must be a truck going by.”

From Brewster Conant, Jr.: “I was on the second floor on my computer and there was a very subtle shake, a creak in the room right near where the cat was napping, but the cat wasn’t moving.”

From Tom Beals: “I was in my workspace and thought that’s a large and long-lasting rumble – thought it might be a very heavy truck or long train.”

From Pat Clifford: “A piece of artwork fell off the wall, after hanging there for 20 years.”

From Debra Simes: “I have about 150 vases. It seemed like every one of them was shaking. But none toppled over or fell to the floor.”

From Debby Andell: “I was walking on Central Street near Idylwilde when I heard, not felt, an enormous rumble. Distracted from my podcast, I looked around and coincidentally a truck was coming down the hill. It seemed the noise was way out of proportion to the size of the truck, so I wasn’t surprised to hear about the earthquake a few minutes later.”

From Bernice Baran: “I was sitting on my couch reading Autocracy, Inc. by Anne Applebaum in preparation for the League of Women Voters’ book group. I felt the Earth shifting, and it seemed very appropriate for the book I was reading.”

From Leo Fochtman: “I was at the dentist’s office, just about to get my teeth cleaned, when I felt a vibration. This dentist’s office has vibrating chairs, and I looked over to see if the hygienist had accidently pushed a button to make the chair vibrate.”

My query also generated a couple of responses from disappointed people who regretted that they had not felt the earthquake, possibly because they were driving or napping or situated on a less shakable spot. I myself fall in this disappointed category; on Acton’s big earthquake day, I was out of town.

Lots of other people across New England felt the earthquake. The map below shows the locations where individuals submitted their earthquake observations to the U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) “Did you feel it?” website. The yellow star marks the earthquake’s epicenter, and each dot marks one observation. Based on the respondent’s answers to questions like, “Did you hear creaking or other noises?” “Was it difficult to stand and/or walk?” “Did objects rattle, topple over, or fall off shelves?,” the USGS classifies the shaking intensity of the earthquake as felt by each observer on a scale from I (not felt) to X+ (extreme). The blue color in the dots signifies that all of the reported observations from the Jan 27 earthquake were in the II-III (weak) range. If you would like to add your observations to the USGS database, whether or not you felt the earthquake, your observations would be welcomed at https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us6000pmk3/tellus.

A map of the New England coast. A yellow star shows off the coast of Maine and many little dots show where people reported feeling the quake. The dots extend from north of Portland to south of Providence, RI and west of Springfield, MA.
Location of the Jan. 27 earthquake (yellow star), and felt observations of the earthquake (blue dots). Graphic: US Geological Survey: https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us6000pmk3

There is a research seismograph installed in a basement in Acton, but I was unable to obtain data from that instrument in time for the Acton Exchange publication schedule. However, Gleason Public Library in Carlisle has an educational seismograph.

A table with a green seismometer in a fishtank (for extra protection, a seismograph printer, and a computer screen showing the printout in larger detail.
The seismometer at Gleason Library in Carlisle. Photo: Kim Kastens

Library Director Martha Feeney-Patten, who lives in South Acton, showed me the setup and provided a printout of their data from the recent earthquake. The seismograph was installed in collaboration with the Boston College Educational Seismology Project. Gleason Library welcomes school groups and others interested in learning about earthquakes and earth science.

A photo of a seismograph readout -- a series of slightly squiggly black lines on white paper. The earthquake shows up as a small set (a few minutes) of longer lines (with a blue circle around it).
Blue highlighter marks the signal from the January 27 earthquake as recorded at the Gleason Public Library in Carlisle. Photo: Kim Kastens

There are no active tectonic plate boundaries in New England. We live in the middle of the North American plate, which extends from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge to the San Andreas Fault. As explained on theNortheast States Emergency Consortium (NESEC) website, the North American plate is being very slowly squeezed from both sides, building up pressure within the plate. Eventually, that pressure gets released in an intraplate earthquake, often along ancient faults left over from times in geological history when what is now New England was the site of a massive collision between tectonic plates. Such earthquakes are typically small, like the Jan 27 quake.The largest earthquake on record in Massachusetts occurred off Cape Ann in 1755, with an intensity of VIII (severe). The seismic hazard risk ofMiddlesex County is classified as “low,” meaning there is a 2% chance of a potentially damaging earthquake in the next 50 years.

Kim Kastens is an Associate Editor and Board member of the Acton Exchange. She has a B.A. in geology and a PhD in marine geology /oceanography and worked for most of her career at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University.

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