Experts: W. Enfield quake not unusual Temblor measures 3.3 on Richter scale

AUGUSTA – The minor earthquake centered in West Enfield on Wednesday night was not an unusual occurrence for Maine, according to a state geologist.

The earthquake, which registered 3.3 on the Richter scale and was picked up by the U.S. Geological Survey and Weston Observatory at Boston College, had a depth range of 5 kilometers, according to Tom Weddle of the Maine Geological Survey.

“It’s not an unusual phenomenon,” Weddle said. The state has earthquakes all the time but we don’t feel most of them, he said Thursday. When a quake registers in the 2 to 3.5 range, residents usually report hearing a loud noise or feeling the tremor, but his agency had not received a lot of calls on this earthquake, he said.

Residents from Great Pond to Lamoine to Bradley called media and police outlets to report the quake, which occurred at 8:24 p.m.

The geologist and local police said no reports of damage were filed from the earthquake. “A 3.3 quake is not a terribly large quake,” Weddle said.

Some areas in the state appear to have more quakes, according to information gleaned from records kept from the 1700s to present, Weddle said. These areas include the Dover-Foxcroft and West Enfield regions. Last year, from Christmas to mid-January, three quakes occurred near Waterville, Rumford and Turner, he said.

Unlike the West Coast where the Earth’s plates slide over one another or collide, the New England region is on the trailing edge of a plate. Maine does not have the same geological conditions as the West Coast, therefore the quakes are a mystery. “We don’t really know what the cause of the quakes is, other than there is some stress in the Earth’s crust as it’s being redistributed,” Weddle said. There is no great agreement about why the earthquakes are occurring, he said.

Anyone who felt or heard Wednesday’s quake is encouraged to complete a questionnaire on the survey’s Web site at www.state.me.usdocnrimcmgs.