Boston’s Current Risk Of An Earthquake

Taiwan was dealt the blow of the strongest earthquake in 25 years. The 7.4 magnitude quake killed 9 people at the time of this writing and injured hundreds more.

Japan was victim of another earthquake back in January. It was a 7.6 magnitude quake resulting in over150 people dead.

Climate change is a polarizing topic and people can get hyperemotional about it here in Massachusetts. Natural disasters are ostensibly getting worse and more frequent in the U.S. or is that just because we are hyperaware of them?

Massachusetts

Massachusetts is not known for its regular occurrence of natural disasters. We infrequently have hurricanes, tornadoes, major blizzards, wildfires, floods, droughts, forget volcanoes, but what about earthquakes?

Has Boston Ever Had An Earthquake? Are There Fault Lines In Massachusetts?

There were damaging earthquakes near New York, NY (magnitude 5.0 in 1884), Boston, MA (magnitude 5.6 in 1727 and magnitude 6.2 in 1755), Buffalo, NY (magnitude 5.6 in 1929), and Hartford, CT (magnitude 5.0 in 1791). -nesec.org

There are fault lines throughout Massachusetts, but most of them are most likely inactive due to the number of earthquakes in the last 300 years.

Massachusetts Vs. California

Earthquakes happen much more frequently in California than in the northeastern US, with the rate of earthquakes being about 100 times greater in California.  Whereas a strongly damaging earthquake occurs in California on average once every 2-3 years, such an event occurs in the northeastern U.S. on average once every 200-300 years.

That was obviously a long time ago, but what about the next 30 years? What's the earthquake forecast looking like in Massachusetts?

The Risk of an earthquake in Massachusetts

The risk of an earthquake in Massachusetts is fortunately still super low. Experts say that there is a 2% chance of potentially-damaging earthquake shaking in Massachusetts in the next 50 years.