Up-to-date Maine Earthquake Information

Caution: Different sources may give slightly different reports immediately after an earthquake.
Preliminary information is subject to revision.

U.S. National Earthquake Information Center

  • Current Seismicity. A map and list of earthquakes around the world in the past month. Quakes are posted as soon as reliable information becomes available. Small quakes (< Magnitude 2.5) may not be listed.
  • Older Earthquakes. Search the earthquake archives of the National Earthquake Information Center. Worldwide coverage. To find all Maine epicenters, open "Advanced Options" and specify the Geographic Region between Latitude 47.5 and 43 (North), and between Longitude -71.1 and -66.8 (with negative longitudes being West). This will get a rectangular area including all of Maine, and parts of Quebec, New Brunswick, and the Gulf of Maine.

New England Seismic Network

  • List of Recent New England Earthquakes. Information on New England earthquakes since 2007 as determined by Weston Observatory from their local seismic network.
  • View Current Seismograms. Continuous automatic record from seismometers in the New England Seismic Network. Active monitoring stations in Maine, currently (May, 2022), are in Waterville (Station: WVL), Machias (EMMW), Orono (ORNO), Dover-Foxcroft (PKME), and Presque Isle (PQI). (Check current station list here.) The daily seismic plot shows a different colored line for each hour, with local New England time labeled to the left (EST or EDT, as appropriate), and Greenwich Mean Time (or Coordinated Universal Time, UTC) to the right. Minutes go from left to right through the hour. A smooth, horizontal record indicates little or no ground motion; deviations from the horizontal time line indicate ground motion at that station. Surface activity from things other than earthquakes normally affects only one station. The seismic waves from an earthquake travel through the earth's crust, and are detected by seismometers across the region, in a systematic pattern of decreasing amplitude and delayed onset away from the epicenter.
  • Older Earthquakes. Search the earthquake archives of Weston Observatory of Boston College to get earthquakes since 1990. Data tables, or catalogs since 1638, are also available for download.

Earthquakes Canada

  • Recent Earthquakes in Eastern Canada. Includes Maine. Earthquakes in the past 30 days, on map and list. Some small Maine earthquakes not listed by the U.S. National Network may appear on the Canadian list.
  • Seismogram Viewer. Real-time plots streaming from seismic stations in Canada. Since Maine is half surrounded by Canada, most Maine earthquakes are recorded in these plots. Archived seismic data can be requested by year, day, and hour for signals from older events.

National Tsunami Warning Center

  • Preliminary Earthquake Bulletins. Issued by the National Tsunami Warning Center. The purpose of these bulletins is to alert emergency responders as soon as possible that an earthquake has occurred in or near the ocean, and to evaluate the tsunami danger. The earthquake parameters, such as location and magnitude, are considered preliminary, and are superseded by more precise information, which may take longer to obtain.

Last updated on February 4, 2022