If the Craton is moving, is the sky falling?

Connecticut officials coordinate earthquake preparation »



The situation is confusing and challenging—a place that has not shaken in centuries is constantly now moving..

Of course nothing large enough to be earth shattering or teeth chattering has happened at this point, officials must be anxious.. Residents who have homes not built to withstand large shakes must be equally upset about the daily earthquakes that are occurring.

Safe places are now being thought up.. disaster plans.. family meet up points, and ways to get in touch with loved ones should something bigger even occur.

Scientists are still attempting to state exactly why is happening and why.. It has been challenging . The New York TIMES reports it this way :

Connecticut sat in the middle of this massive body of land. Then, about 200 million years after Pangea was formed, it began pulling apart. As the world began to take the shape, tectonic plates were colliding and breaking apart with tremendous force, creating huge faults. One of those faults — extending from near New Haven north to Keene, N.H. — helped create the Connecticut Valley. Although that fault has been inactive for 140 million years, residual stresses still exist and can set off earthquakes.


Since 1980, there have been swarms of several hundreds of earthquakes in and around Moodus, and scientists believe the Indian name was the result of the small tremors that would shake the lands.


But those quakes were mostly only detectable by machines. Not so the most recent swarm.


Dino Chrisovechotis said that he lived through earthquakes as a child in Greece but that his neighbors could use some basic information.


“Nobody here knows anything about earthquakes,” said Mr. Chrisovechotis, standing in Gus’s Pub & Pizzarama in Plainfield, the restaurant of which he is a co-owner. “It’s crazy.”



Just yesterday, a larger earthquake struck on the NE edge of the craton in Canada..

HISTORY