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When Maine quakes, Boston shakes

Earthquake seismograph

Earthquake around 7:12 in southern Maine was felt all over the Boston area.

You feel it? Area tweeters, of course, were all over it:

Earthquake in Boston

Storified by Adam Gaffin · Tue, Oct 16 2012 16:37:28

Uh, was there just an earthquake in Savin Hill? What the fuck balls just happened? @universalhubKatia
Earthquake! Holy shit! @universalhubMichael
@universalhub Was there just an earthquake in Dedham???Chris Adams
@universalhub Was that just an earthquake in the North End?carl
@universalhub Anyone else feel an earthquake in Winthrop?Lisa S
That just felt like an earthquake in my apartment in Boston in JP?! @universalhubBrian
@universalhub anyone else feel a strong shake in the Oak Square area. Earthquake?Colin
Pictures in my apartment fell off my walls….. #Earthquake #NorthEnd @universalhubBoston to a T
@universalhub was that an Earthquake I just felt in Southie?michaelpatrickbrady
@michaelatbu @universalhub felt it here in FraminghamMichael E. Harvey
My Southie neighbors are all atwitter. The old fashioned way. #earthquake @universalhubSteve
Earthquake tremor, shook house, in East Arlington near Capitol Theater. Biggest I've ever personally felt (granted, of few). @universalhubNick Lorenzen
7:15 Wife reports couch shook enough to freak her out #RoslindaleAdam Gaffin
#Earthquake in Maine, felt in Boston: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/at00mc0dsp#summary @universalhubDavid J. Schachner
@universalhub Happened in Saugus too!! Scared the hell out of me!Cyn Donnelly
@universalhub my couch was a bit swingy. #Cambridge #earthquakeSharon
@universalhub just had shaking in our top/ third floor condo just outside of Inman Square: what the ???Kevin Fennessy
@universalhub 4.5 magnitude earthquake - 6km SSW of Lake Arrowhead, Maine http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/at00mc0dsp#summaryNight Owl City
@universalhub My fiancé doesn't understand why I'm so excited. Silly Californian.Kathryn Kinzel
@universalhub Scituate, too! Also hearing Duxbury and Hull felt it.ScituateDailyPhoto
@universalhub Building shaking in DotBill Nikolis
@universalhub In class...thought it was someone moving a chair next to meMark Olson
@JPPatch @universalhub YEP! Same here in JP. Stuff fell off my bureau.Rhea Becker
@universalhub. shook Bunker Hill too. Atleast felt it in basementguide to the world
@universalhub - Don't think the #earthquake made the jump over the harbor to East Boston. Didn't feel a thing.Ed Deveau
@universalhub did feel it over in East boston// Chelsea borderPena Edwin
@universalhub @ewdeveau My family in Orient Heights did! Nothing in Peabody.Bella Travaglini
@universalhub i felt the #earthquake down in braintree!Jaclyn Smith

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Comments

4.6!

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And the whole house shook. I thought it was the cats jumping around or a low flying airplane.

Glad I felt this one, I didn't feel the one last year...

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At least, I don't think I did. Had headphones on so didn't hear anything move/creak. Nothing in the room shook or moved for me to see either.

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Felt nothing in Brighton also. Didn't even know there was an earthquake until channel 5 pre-empted Dancing with the Stars to cover it.

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I didn't even know this had happened until I saw the paper this morning.

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The floor and the walls seemed to shake somewhat, along with dishes rattling, and a low rumbling sound. It passed about as fast as it came on, but it was a little. bit. eerie!.

I think that it also caused Aziza's (Aziza is the name of my 2.5 year old pet Congo African Grey Parrot.) drinking water to spill out of its cage dish, because I had to replace Aziza's drinking water even though I'd replaced it afew hours before! Weird!

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I thought I heard/felt some sort of rumbling (I'm in Revere) around that time. Thought it may have been a truck passing by.

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I'm not far from you (Chelsea). We're in the flight path tonight for Logan and sometimes some low flying planes can rattle the house.. apparently that wasn't it.

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Felt it on the 5th floor in Beacon Hill. At first I thought it was the wind......though the wind cannot shake floors. Quite scary, never felt one in Boston before. My toddler looked up at me with a confused look on her face.

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Why do I feel so left out? I want a story! My damn dog didn't even do anything!They're supposed to be,like psychically cosmologically tuned in to this stuff. So bummed.

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Just got back from Johnies, batteries, milk, water and bread running low. Long lines.

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I felt it in Beacon Hill. I was sitting with my back up against the wall and it felt like something was pushing me.

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I felt and heard it in Union Square in Allston. Sounded like a truck was driving too close to my house. Blinds shook.

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I just posted a comment above saying that I didn't feel anything in Allston. I'm also in Union Square. Wacky!

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I think the only reason I noticed, though, is because I was sitting in a chair that was up against a wall.

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There was a t-shirt up online less than half an hour after the quake.

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Or something like that. I had been napping and was half awake, it felt like my bed was moving from head to foot. I jumped up and ran into the kitchen where my housemate was cooking, he felt it too. The shockwave spread quicker on Facebook than it did on the USGS site, as about a minute later, there were about thirty posts about it, while the USGS hadn't updated it yet (to the USGS's credit, it was posted soon after.

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First thought: wow, my computer has a "rumble" peripheral. Second thought: no wait, it doesn't. Third thought: car backed into the house. Fourth thought: no noise! must be earthquake!

Finally! I missed last year's earthquake by being in California, of all places.

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but at the time, I was at a meeting in the basement of Somerville City Hall. I think people on the 2nd and 3rd floors of the same building did feel something.

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Didn't feel a thing!

My wife, however, greeted me at the door, around 7:20 p.m. by exclaiming she thought we'd just had an earthquake - she was on the couch and she said it started shaking, almost like somebody was sitting on the other end and rocking back and forth.

Naturally, I dropped the grocery bags I had and called up Twitter on my phone - to what was already a flood of quake reports.

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I was on the campus of UMass-Boston sitting in a classroom
and lo and behold the room started shaking. I first thought
"Is that an earthquake? Nah, must be construction. But
construction doesn't send out "waves" of motion."

It as fucking awesome to find out that it was indeed an earth
quake.

Does anybody know about the 'quake? Bullshit!

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At least, my wife and daughter did -- I guess I'm too numb, b/c I didn't feel a thing...

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Felt it in Roxbury. That's the second quake felt in Boston in 14 months - last one had its epicenter in VA in Aug. 2011. I thought it was the Left Coast that was supposed to fall into the sea because it sits on a fault line....

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I read earlier in an article that the varied geology of the region is generally responsible for the acute amplification (or nullification) of the earthquake effects. As I understand it (not a geologist), having solid rock seams in the substrata and above can help to transmit the energy of an earthquake further, while softer packed soil will absorb it like a dampener.

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John Ebel of the Weston Observatory was on WBUR this morning and said that even minor quakes like last night's are likely to be felt over a much greater area than an equivalent quake in California, mainly because our rocks are "cold" while theirs are "hot." I'm assuming he was talking about the rock layer under all our dirt and stuff, not the sort of rocks you dig up while planting a garden.

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Glad you posted it and shared it with us. It was somewhat freaky, but my friends, family and neighbors, and I were all safe and accounted for.

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