PLANETARY TREMORS: Weather Anomalies - Rare Earthquake Shakes Residents Of Maine, United States?! [MAPS + TECTONIC SUMMARY]

USGS earthquake location.

February 3, 2016 - MAINE, UNITED STATES - At 6:56 a.m., residents on the east coast of Maine got a wake up call from nature.

A magnitude 3.3 earthquake hit 5 miles to the northeast of Eastport's shore, but residents thought it felt a lot closer than that.

Luckily, there wasn't much damage, but it gave people a good rattle.

The earthquake was detected coming from the waters between Maine and Canada's coasts. Residents from Charlotte and Perry and as far as Machias reported they heard and felt it.

Some people experienced minor damage like falling household objects up to 10 miles from the center of the quake.

USGS shakemap intensity.

Early risers even saw waves coming from the epicenter in the water.

A magnitude 3.3 earthquake is still considered a minor one, but to some who lived close by, it was anything but.

"The only thing I could think of was the house blowing up," said one Eastport resident.

"There were some things falling off the shelves and it sounded like the house was going to crack in half," said another Eastport resident.

A worker on the pier said, "a short time later was a big wave rolling in. Just one rogue wave."

This earthquake was small but was enough to get the attention of Eastport residents this morning.

As an earth science instructor at UMaine said, a 3.3 earthquake doesn't cause much damage, and it could've been a lot worse.

Alice Kelly, PH.D., an instructor of earth and climate studies at UMaine, says it's unusual to see seismic activity in this area.

"For people who experience earthquakes frequently, this is actually rather small. China rattles, things may fall of a shelf. The most active part of the North American plate that's closest to us is in the mid-Atlantic so earthquakes here are very rare," said Kelly.

There have not been any reports of aftershocks. - WCSH.

Earthquakes in the Stable Continental Region

Natural Occurring Earthquake Activity
Most of North America east of the Rocky Mountains has infrequent earthquakes. Here and there earthquakes are more numerous, for example in the New Madrid seismic zone centered on southeastern Missouri, in the Charlevoix-Kamouraska seismic zone of eastern Quebec, in New England, in the New York - Philadelphia - Wilmington urban corridor, and elsewhere. However, most of the enormous region from the Rockies to the Atlantic can go years without an earthquake large enough to be felt, and several U.S. states have never reported a damaging earthquake.

Earthquakes east of the Rocky Mountains, although less frequent than in the West, are typically felt over a much broader region than earthquakes of similar magnitude in the west. East of the Rockies, an earthquake can be felt over an area more than ten times larger than a similar magnitude earthquake on the west coast. It would not be unusual for a magnitude 4.0 earthquake in eastern or central North America to be felt by a significant percentage of the population in many communities more than 100 km (60 mi) from its source. A magnitude 5.5 earthquake in eastern or central North America might be felt by much of the population out to more than 500 km (300 mi) from its source. Earthquakes east of the Rockies that are centered in populated areas and large enough to cause damage are, similarly, likely to cause damage out to greater distances than earthquakes of the same magnitude centered in western North America.

Most earthquakes in North America east of the Rockies occur as faulting within bedrock, usually miles deep. Few earthquakes east of the Rockies, however, have been definitely linked to mapped geologic faults, in contrast to the situation at plate boundaries such as California's San Andreas fault system, where scientists can commonly use geologic evidence to identify a fault that has produced a large earthquake and that is likely to produce large future earthquakes. Scientists who study eastern and central North America earthquakes often work from the hypothesis that modern earthquakes occur as the result of slip on preexisting faults that were formed in earlier geologic eras and that have been reactivated under the current stress conditions. The bedrock of Eastern North America is, however, laced with faults that were active in earlier geologic eras, and few of these faults are known to have been active in the current geologic era. In most areas east of the Rockies, the likelihood of future damaging earthquakes is currently estimated from the frequencies and sizes of instrumentally recorded earthquakes or earthquakes documented in historical records.
Induced Seismicity

As is the case elsewhere in the world, there is evidence that some central and eastern North America earthquakes have been triggered or caused by human activities that have altered the stress conditions in earth's crust sufficiently to induce faulting. Activities that have induced felt earthquakes in some geologic environments have included impoundment of water behind dams, injection of fluid into the earth's crust, extraction of fluid or gas, and removal of rock in mining or quarrying operations. In much of eastern and central North America, the number of earthquakes suspected of having been induced is much smaller than the number of natural earthquakes, but in some regions, such as the south-central states of the U.S., a significant majority of recent earthquakes are thought by many seismologists to have been human-induced. Even within areas with many human-induced earthquakes, however, the activity that seems to induce seismicity at one location may be taking place at many other locations without inducing felt earthquakes. In addition, regions with frequent induced earthquakes may also be subject to damaging earthquakes that would have occurred independently of human activity. Making a strong scientific case for a causative link between a particular human activity and a particular sequence of earthquakes typically involves special studies devoted specifically to the question. Such investigations usually address the process by which the suspected triggering activity might have significantly altered stresses in the bedrock at the earthquake source, and they commonly address the ways in which the characteristics of the suspected human-triggered earthquakes differ from the characteristics of natural earthquakes in the region.

For More Information
Additional earthquake information for Maine

- USGS.

ICE AGE NOW: New Statewide Snowfall Record Set In Eastport, Maine - OVER SIX FEET In Just 10 Days!

Snow was piled up on sidewalks of Eastport on Tuesday, after a major storm brought several inches of snow to the small city in Washington County.
© Don Dunbar

February 5, 2015 - MAINE, UNITED STATES - Seventy-six inches and counting.

That's how much snow has fallen in Eastport since Jan. 25, which is a new 10-day record for documented snowfall anywhere in Maine. The previous record of 71 inches was set more than 50 years ago at Ripogenus Dam, just west of Baxter State Park in Piscataquis County, over a 10-day period, from late December 1962 to early January 1963, according to the National Weather Service.

Victor Nouhan, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Caribou, emphasized Wednesday the amount of data and information available to the federal agency is limited, so he cannot say whether Eastport's 76 inches is the most snowfall ever in Maine in a week and a half. He said the Fryeburg area got an exceptionally heavy dumping of snow in February 1969, which may rival the amount that officially has been measured in Eastport.

Regardless of whether Eastport's snowfall total ever has been exceeded - there have been reports of heavy snowstorms in New England dating back several centuries - the amount the easternmost city in the United States has received since late January is "extremely unusual" in recent history, Nouhan said. Having repeated storms in a short period of time that all follow the same path is not typical.

There are a couple of factors that could explain it. One, Nouhan said, is that water far offshore in the Atlantic is warmer than average, which could be helping to steer storms over the Gulf of Maine that otherwise would veer offshore further south. Another is a "deeper" or more southerly wind trough in the upper atmosphere, which enables weather systems to pick up more moisture over the Gulf of Mexico and the southeast coast before they turn northeast toward Cape Cod.

Eastport, Nouhan added, has been right in the firing line of the recent storms as they travel northeast and bear down on Atlantic Canada. The bands of snow that are generated as the ocean storms approach land often are heaviest along the coast, he said, similar to "lake-effect" snowfall in states or Canadian provinces that abut the Great Lakes.

"If the storms take the same track, the ocean doesn't freeze over so there's no shortage of moisture," the forecaster said.

Nouhan said the intensity of the snowfall in coastal and Down East Maine is not necessarily a new thing, because weather patterns can take decades or even 100 years to complete a cycle.

He said there are several historical reports of multiple storms repeatedly dumping snow in New England during the past 300 years. Some of these storms, such as the Great Snow of 1717, could have dumped more snow in Maine, he said, with local accumulations that either went unnoticed or were not scientifically documented.

"This is not unprecedented," he said.

But Eastport residents might not be taking much time to consider Maine's snowfall history, given predictions for their immediate future. According to forecasts, parts of Washington County, including Eastport, are expected to get another 6 to 8 inches of snow by Thursday evening. - Bangor Daily News.