No, that's not your furnace exploding

So, Liam is great and he had a fun day and yadda yadda yadda, we had and EARTHQUAKE yesterday!

That's right, we've had seismic activity here over the last 36 hours - our very first earthquake. Here's the story.

Thursday night between 7 and 8, I'm sitting in the living room and hear what sounds like an explosion and very small rumble coming from down the street. It sounded not unlike an exploding boiler (at least how I've imagined it). I didn't give it much attention - it could easily have been a large truck rumbling down Cottage St.

Then, Friday morning, around 6:30, T, L and I are in the living room and a deep rumbling shudder comes out of nowhere. It still sounded like a booming explosion, but this time a strong one and much closer to the house. Our old house vibrated a bit, as the aftershocks of the explosion rumbled and eventually diminished. Tara and I uttered some choice words - 'Jeepers, what could that have been?'. We wondered if our own boiler had cracked, and we wondered if we should take any evasive action, like leave the house. We looked outside and none of our neighbors were around, and no homes were on fire. We figured it was not an explosion because it must have come from next door, and both homes were intact. I called the fire department to report an explosion sound (by this time, we considered it might have been an earthquake). After half a dozen tries to the non-emergency line, I finally got through and the dispatcher said the've been hearing from people even down to Otter Creek (which is some distance from Bar Harbor). So, we figured it must have been an earthquake.

And that's exactly what it was - a magnitude 3.5 earthquake centered a few miles under Kebo Mountain. On the USGS aerial photo, the epicenter is the red square - less than a mile from our house. Check out the USGS page - it's full of interesting info about our little quake. Interesting to note the many maps on the USGS site - one of which suggests that our part of Maine is a relatively uninteresting seismic area. I've felt two more tremors (aftershocks, perhaps) just this evening.