Don’t miss, “The Mystery of Earthquakes in the Eastern United States: Why Does the Earth Quake in New England?” by Dr. Alan Kafka, at the 2026 Northeast HamXposition (“HamX”).
“When people think of earthquakes, they probably think of a lot of places other than the Eastern United States (EUS), such as California and Japan,” says Kafka. “But (long ago), when I was a graduate student studying earthquakes in the Caribbean plate region, I discovered that earthquakes also occur in ‘my own backyard’ here in the EUS, and in fact they occur all around New England. Since then, I have been obsessed with the enigma of why earthquakes occur in the EUS, and in New England in particular, deep within the interior of the North American plate.”
Dr. Kafka’s research and teaching integrates geophysics, earthquake science, applied mathematics, environmental systems, and community science for the greater good. He studies earthquakes in many regions of planet Earth and has long been obsessed with the enigma of why earthquakes occur in the Eastern US, deep within the interior of the North American plate. Dr. Kafka is also active in the global community of seismologists maintaining networks of seismographs for monitoring earthquakes and other seismic events around the world. After 42 years of teaching at Boston College and conducting research at BC’s Weston Observatory (a geophysical research and science education center), he retired from his faculty position at BC at the end of 2025 to pursue his lifelong dream of being an independent scientist.