Update: Map of the M4.1 Earthquake near Dover, Delaware
The USGS has up-to-date details on the November 30, 2017 event.
A magnitude 4.1 earthquake struck near Dover Delaware on November 30, 2017 at 4:48 pm Eastern Standard Time.
This is the largest earthquake to occur within about a 90 mile radius since 1994 when a M4.6 event was recorded near Reading, Pennsylvania, and it might be the largest in Delaware since an earthquake of unknown magnitude near Wilmington on October 9, 1871. The 1871 earthquake caused some damage at Wilmington and New Castle, Delaware and at Oxford, Pennsylvania.
Yesterday’s earthquake was felt along the U.S. East Coast from Massachusetts to central Virginia, including New York City, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C. The USGS has so far received more than 16,000 reports on its “Did You Feel It?” website.
Since 1973, several other earthquakes were recorded north of the Dover event on the New Jersey side of the Delaware Bay and Delaware River. The largest of these was an M 3.8 on February 28, 1973 across the river fromWilmington. That earthquake was felt widely in Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
People in the New York – Philadelphia – Wilmington urban corridor have, since colonial times, felt small earthquakes and suffered damage from infrequent larger ones. New York City was damaged in 1737 and 1884. Moderately damaging earthquakes strike in the urban corridor roughly twice a century and smaller earthquakes are felt about every 2-3 years.
Field crews from Carnegie Institute, the University of Maryland, Columbia University and Lehigh University and USGS are deploying seismometers in Delaware and New Jersey to record aftershocks.
Visit the USGS event page for more information. For estimates of casualties and damage, visit the USGS Prompt Assessment of Global Earthquakes for Response (PAGER) website.
If you felt this earthquake, report your experience on the “USGS Did You Feel It?” website for this event.
The USGS operates a 24/7 National Earthquake Information Center in Colorado that can be reached for more information at 303-273-8500.
Learn more about the USGS Earthquake Hazards Program.
Get Our News
These items are in the RSS feed format (Really Simple Syndication) based on categories such as topics, locations, and more. You can install and RSS reader browser extension, software, or use a third-party service to receive immediate news updates depending on the feed that you have added. If you click the feed links below, they may look strange because they are simply XML code. An RSS reader can easily read this code and push out a notification to you when something new is posted to our site.