Updated January 27, 2025 at 12:21 PM ET
A 3.8 magnitude earthquake off of Maine rocked the New England coast from Augusta to Cape Cod on Monday morning, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
The earthquake occurred 6.8 miles off the coast of York Harbor, Maine, around 10:22 a.m. No tsunami watches or warnings went into effect for the area, according to the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration.
The shaking was felt across New England, according to a map by the Geological Survey.
The Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency wrote in a post on social media that it received reports of shaking but no reports of structural damage. After an earthquake, MEMA advises residents to look for any possible damage in their homes and check on neighbors or elderly relatives.
The Maine Emergency Management Agency asked residents to only call 911 in the event of an emergency. The earthquake did not appear to cause major damage, said Vanessa Corson, a spokesperson for the agency. Corson also said local emergency management agencies did not report any damage.
New Hampshire’s Department of Safety said the state’s 911 number did not receive any calls about damage or injuries.
“We have not received word of any issues. We’ve spoken with the directors at York and Cumberland County EMA, and everything seems to be in order,” Corson said.
Damage is unlikely to occur from an earthquake of this size, said John Ebel, professor of geophysics at Boston College and senior research scientist at the Weston Observatory.
“The earthquake could have been pretty strongly felt by people, maybe scared some people, but was well below the threshold at which damage starts,” said Ebel.
Damage is generally seen from magnitude 5 earthquakes or higher, according to Ebel.
He said Monday’s seismic activity was “standard earthquake activity” for the region. New England gets several earthquakes per month with magnitudes of 1.5 to 2, according to Ebel, but residents rarely notice.
While this earthquake was stronger, it’s not out of the ordinary for the region.
“ As you go up in magnitude, the earthquakes become less frequent,” Ebel told WBUR.
An earthquake in the range of what the region felt Monday occurs about every five years in New England, he said.
Ebel said the Weston Observatory, a geophysical research center which measures seismic activity, will likely record smaller aftershocks as a result of this quake.
Last spring, Boston felt rumblings from a 4.8 magnitude earthquake centered near Lebanon, New Jersey.
Earthquakes on the east coast are felt over a larger area than those on the west coast, according to the USGS. After the April earthquake, USGS geophysicist Paul Caruso told the Associated Press that rocks on the east coast better at spreading earthquake energy across far distances than rocks out west.
With reporting from WBUR’s Fausto Menard and Patrick Whittle of The Associated Press.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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