According to USGS, a relatively weak earthquake struck eastern Pennsylvania during the overnight hours in on the northern fringe of an area known as the Lancaster Seismic Zone. At 12:32 am, USGS reported a magnitude 1.8 earthquake from a depth of 5 km near Lehighton, Pennsylvania. Leighton is located half way between Reading and Scranton in Pennsylvania.
Since colonial times, people in the Lancaster seismic zone of southeastern Pennsylvania have felt small earthquakes and suffered damage from larger ones.
“Earthquakes are felt once or twice per decade, with some decades having none and the 1990s having as many as six,” USGS wrote in an update on the earthquake. The Lancaster Seismic Zone is the most active seismic zone in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. This seismic zone has produced a number of moderate earthquakes in the past and has been routinely active over at least the last 200 years…