WESTPORT, Conn. — A powerful 7.8 struck off the coast of the Alaskan peninsula early Wednesday, east coast time.
A tsunami warning was issued for the Aleutian Islands and then canceled shortly afterward. The Tsunami Warning Center then put out a notice giving the all-clear for tsunami activity in the Pacific.
Watch as the quake rolled across North America:
Westport’s seismograph picked up on the seismic waves roughly 10 minutes after the Alaska quake. Those seismic waves are essentially vibrational energy and do not represent actual shaking that would be felt at the surface. Thousands of other seismographs across the world picked up on the Alaska quake as the waves circled the Earth. This happens with any big earthquake.
This event may sound familiar. A 5.8 earthquake that struck Mineral, Virginia on August 23rd, 2011 was felt in Connecticut, although it had no lasting damage. According to the US Geological Survey (USGS) the geological structure of the east coast, quakes can be felt from a farther distance than if one struck on the west coast.
On Tuesday, a 1.6 quake was recorded on the Richter scale in Newington. On the Richter Scale, a 1.6 is considered a “Microearthquake” which is undetectable by humans. It’s unlikely anyone felt the 1.6 in Newington yesterday. The USGS says the shaking may have been weak at best.
Yesterday’s 1.6 occurred at 12:10 PM and was located about a mile and a half underneath Newington.
Connecticut is no stranger to small earthquakes. There are several fault linesll across the area, and they usually deliver earthquakes lower than 3.0 magnitude. You may remember back in January and February of 2015 when Plainfield had an earthquake swarm with dozens of quakes between magnitude 2.0 and 3.3.
In the 1980s, scientific data confirmed that noises often heard in Moodus and East Haddam were the sounds of small earthquakes that are taking place less than a mile below Mount Tom, according to the Northeast States Emergency Management Consortium.
Connecticut’s largest earthquake is believed to have been in 1791 in the Moodus, East Haddam area with a magnitude between 4.5 to 5.0. It was reported that chimneys and stone walls were toppled, and was felt all around. 30 aftershocks were reported afterward. In a report in the American Journal of Science in 1840, it was reported that aftershocks could have been felt 70 miles away.