October 10, from Ellsworth, Maine library. Although I really wanted to travel to Lamoine, Maine, my visit was filled with trepidation and apprehension. While in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, I heard rumblings on the news of an earthquake on Mount Desert Island, where Bar Harbor is. The island happens to be just across Frenchman Bay from Lamoine Beach, our destination. I thought about the California folks who routinely experience earthquakes, then about the Maine people for whom the natural phenomenon is not common. It couldn't have been anything to be concerned about. No news reports reported the event after the brief one I heard on the car radio. As we left the Bath, Maine, area, news reports told of a cleanup being done on Mount Desert Island's Loop Road. The mess was created by yet another earthquake, this one registering 3.9 on the Richter scale. Hmmm, things seemed to be worsening. I began to question our destination, but not too much. I really wanted to visit Lamoine Beach! We received a phone call from Marth the second night of our stay in Ellsworth, the larger town near Lamoine where we usually stay when we visit. We had been playing telephone tag and she was it. I was tagged. She called from just outside our motel room door, soe we invited her in. Martha works on Mount Desert Island and lives nearby. Here's her take on the earthquakes. "The first three earthquakes I didn't feel," she said, noting the center of one was in Otter Creek three miles out of town. The first THREE? Things were worse than I thought! Her friend in Stocton Springs, a good distance away, felt the quakes. Martha didn't. "The first was at four a. m.," she continued. "I was sleeping." The last earthquake, the fourth, was different. At 3.9 on the Richter scale, it was centered off Great Head (did I get the location title correct?), one mile out from Sand Beach, Bar Harbor. "It vibrated me right to my core," Martha said about the rumblings that hit while she was at work on the island. "I've been in San Francisco earthquakes, but it's built for it. I don't expect this here in Maine." People in the restaurant where she works asked if they should get out of the building, she said. "But people from California in the restaurant were saying it wasn't even an earthquake." Martha noted that hte difference in intensity between a 3.5 and 4.5 earthquake is ten times. Intensity increases exponentially with the Richter scale number. The first earthwas 3.4, another 1.8. She doens't know if the earth's plates are shifting or a new fault if forming. What she is sure of is there'll be more earthquakes here in Maine. She did say the USGS has two test wells in Acadia Park. Their water level usually has a three to four inch fluctuation. She said after the quakes there was a three to four feet fluctuation. I'd been concerned about sunamis during our visit to the coast. I wasn't expecting the possibility of experiencing an earthquake. "It was scary, but not frighteningly scary," according to Martha. All I can say is I'm grateful no quake struck during our climb up Schoodic Mountain or our visit to the Ovens, rock caves on the Frenchmen Bay side of Mount Desert Island that are exposed only during low tide. Some things I don't want to experience during my lifetime! | 
