Earthquakes A Relative Rarity In The Area

A Tuesday earthquake that hit 5.8 on the Richter Scale mostly just rattled nerves in the Boston area, although various news reports indicated that some downtown office buildings had emptied out. Further south, there was scattered damage to buildings in Washington D.C., New York and elsewhere.

The tremor seems to have gone relatively unnoticed in the Lynnfield area at the time.

While news like this is relatively uncommon for the North Shore of Massachusetts, there have been some such incidents in history. For example, the U.S. Geological Survey cites an earthquake centered around Cape Ann in January, 1925.

A total of 11 other moderate earthquakes were felt in Massachusetts between 1847 and 1963.