The US Geological Survey reports a very weak earthquake struck Greenwich Thursday afternoon.
The magnitude 1.4 temblor was centered under the Cos Cob part of town. There was no damage reported.
Employees at town hall could hear the quake during an executive session of a town meeting. One of them told Connecticut Public Radio it sounded like construction work.
Connecticut's geology is pretty quiet, in modern times. But it wasn't always that way.
"If we went back about 200-million years, we would have been an extremely geologically active area. But millions of years have passed, and most of those faults are no longer active. So when we're getting these minor earthquakes, we are probably getting a little motion along one of these breaks in the rock that is from very ancient times," said Bruce Museum Science Curator Daniel Ksepka.
"I see a tiny earthquake like this as almost an echo of great geological events that we had in the deep past. Volcanic eruptions that would have basically covered the whole state, giant sea floor spreading where we had plates erupt, faults that were a mile or more deep, motion everywhere, earthquakes, extinctions," said Ksepka.
The paleontologist said he was working in town at the time, but he did not hear the earthquake.
