The 1638 New Hampshire earthquake struck central
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...
on June 1, 1638 (
Julian calendar
The Julian calendar, proposed by Roman consul Julius Caesar in 46 BC, was a reform of the Roman calendar. It took effect on , by edict. It was designed with the aid of Greek mathematicians and astronomers such as Sosigenes of Alexandr ...
). It was the first major
earthquake
An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the shaking of the surface of the Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from ...
to strike
New England
New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...
following the start of European colonization. Modern analysis places its
epicenter
The epicenter, epicentre () or epicentrum in seismology is the point on the Earth's surface directly above a hypocenter or focus, the point where an earthquake or an underground explosion originates.
Surface damage
Before the instrumental pe ...
somewhere near what is now central New Hampshire, with an estimated
magnitude
Magnitude may refer to:
Mathematics
*Euclidean vector, a quantity defined by both its magnitude and its direction
*Magnitude (mathematics), the relative size of an object
*Norm (mathematics), a term for the size or length of a vector
*Order of ...
between 6.0 and 7.0 .
This makes it the largest earthquake on record in New Hampshire and New England, and the second strongest in
northeastern
The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each se ...
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...
after the
1663 Charlevoix earthquake
The 1663 Charlevoix earthquake occurred on February 5 in New France (now the Canadian province of Quebec), and was assessed to have a moment magnitude of between 7.3 and 7.9. The earthquake occurred at 5:30 p.m. local time and was estimated ...
.
See also
*
1755 Cape Ann earthquake
The 1755 Cape Ann earthquake took place off the coast of the British Province of Massachusetts Bay (present-day Massachusetts) on November 18. At between 6.0 and 6.3 on the Richter scale, it remains the largest earthquake in the history of Massac ...
*
List of historical earthquakes
Historical earthquakes is a list of significant earthquakes known to have occurred prior to the beginning of the 20th century. As the events listed here occurred before routine Seismometer, instrumental recordings, they rely mainly on the analys ...
References
External links
Earthquakes in New Hampshire Data (1638–1973)at Dartmouth College Library
{{Earthquakes in the United States
1638 earthquakes
Earthquakes in New Hampshire
1638 in the Thirteen Colonies