The Northern Appalachians Seismic Zone is an active

seismic zone In seismology, a seismic zone or seismic belt is an area of seismicity potentially sharing a common cause. It may also be a region on a map for which a common areal rate of seismicity is assumed for the purpose of calculating probabilistic ground ...

in the

Appalachian Mountains The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, (french: Appalaches), are a system of mountains in eastern to northeastern North America. The Appalachians first formed roughly 480 million years ago during the Ordovician Period. They ...

of eastern North America, extending from

New Brunswick New Brunswick (french: Nouveau-Brunswick, , locally ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. It is the only province with both English and ...

southwards into

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 (state), New York to the west and by the Can ...

and

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

. Both the seismic zone and the resultant

were created by the collision of two tectonic plates about 440–480 million years ago during the middle

Ordovician Period The Ordovician ( ) is a geologic period and system, the second of six periods of the Paleozoic Era. The Ordovician spans 41.6 million years from the end of the Cambrian Period million years ago (Mya) to the start of the Silurian Period Mya. Th ...

References

Geology of New Brunswick Seismic zones of Canada Seismic zones of the United States {{US-earthquake-stub