By ADITHI RAMAKRISHNAN (AP Science Writer)

DALLAS (AP) — East Coast residents were jolted Friday by a 4.8-magnitude earthquake centered near Lebanon, New Jersey with weak rumblings felt as far away as Baltimore and the Massachusetts-New Hampshire border. No life-threatening injuries or major damage have been reported.

Here’s what to know about earthquakes on the East Coast.

Earthquakes large enough to be felt by a lot of people are relatively uncommon on the East Coast. Since 1950 there have been about 20 quakes with a magnitude above 4.5, according to the United States Geological Survey. That’s compared with over 1,000 on the West Coast.

That said, East Coast quakes like the one experienced Friday do happen.

“There’s a history of similar-sized earthquakes in the New York region over the last few hundred years,” said Jessica Thompson Jobe from the USGS’ Earthquake Hazards Program.

In 2011, a 5.8 magnitude earthquake near Mineral, Virginia shook East Coast residents over a wide swath from Georgia to Maine and even southeastern Canada. The USGS called it one of the most widely felt quakes in North American history.

The quake cost $200 to $300 million in property damages, including to the Washington Monument in Washington D.C.

The West Coast lies on a boundary where sections of Earth’s crust rub together, causing stress and slippage along fault lines that generate earthquakes relatively often.

East Coast quakes like Friday’s are caused by compression over time of hard, brittle rock deep underground, according to Robert Thorson, an earth sciences professor at the University of Connecticut. “It’s like having a big block of ice in a vise and you are just slowly cranking up the vise,” he said. “Eventually, you’re going to get some crackling on it.”

These East Coast quakes can be harder to pinpoint. And they tend to affect a broader area. That’s because colder, harder East Coast rocks are better at spreading the rattling energy from an earthquake.

The distribution of cities across the East Coast also means that more people are around to experience the effects of a quake.

“We also have population centers over a large part of the northeast,” said Leslie Sonder, a geophysicist at Dartmouth College, “So a lot of people around here feel the earthquake.”

USGS experts say there is a risk of aftershocks for weeks to months, which are expected after any earthquake. They recommend paying attention to emergency messaging from local officials.

To keep safe from shakes while sleeping, remove any furniture or objects that could fall and injure you or others.

If you feel shaking, drop where you are. Cover your head and neck with one arm, crawl under a table for shelter and hold on. If there’s no shelter nearby, grasp your head and neck with both hands until the shaking stops.

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AP writer Pat Eaton-Robb contributed to this report from Storrs, Connecticut.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

The setup for “A Bit of Light” sounds plenty dark.

This poignant and emotionally astute film begins with Ella (Anna Paquin) having cratered. She’s newly sober, but also bitter and bereft, spending her days bickering with her concerned but helpless dad (Ray Winstone) and sitting and stewing at the playground where she used to take her daughters.

Ella’s mother died of cancer and her father drank. And Ella grew up angry, drank too much would lose control, taking it out on her young daughters – until she handed custody over to her ex-husband. 

It’s at the playground that she meets Neil (Luca Hogan, in a memorable debut), a quirky and precocious adolescent boy, who restores Ella’s hope. 

Stephen Moyer is the director of the film “A Bit of Light,” adapted from a play by Rebecca Callard. (Courtesy of Infinity Hill)

“A Bit of Light” is adapted from a play by Rebecca Callard. The director, Stephen Moyer, first met Paquin when they starred on the Showtime vampire hit “True Blood.” Their characters fell in love, and so did they, marrying in 2010. Moyer did his first directing work on that show and has since directed a feature, the well-received ensemble film, “The Parting Glass,” which also featured Paquin. 

Paquin and Moyer spoke to us about the new film, which arrives in theaters and on streaming April 5, and the conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Q. What appealed to you about the play and the role? 

Moyer: I like that we are coming in after the fireworks have happened. We meet Ella at that moment where it’s the mundane: “Every day, I’ve got to go to fucking meetings that I loathe and I don’t want to be in this room. I don’t want to be with my dad. I don’t want to be any of this.”

I’m sober. I haven’t had a drink in like 23 years. And there are times early on when one is doing that where you think, “Oh my God, it’s only 11:00 a.m. and I’m still sober and that is so boring.”

Paquin: I love how raw and unapologetic and completely broken she is and it’s not dressing up this ugly and sad moment in her life. We allow her to be all the things she is trying to not be but that she is perpetuating because she’s just so full of self-loathing. 

Moyer: This idea of Ella going to the playground where she used to take her children to torture herself, by watching other children play was just such a rock-bottom moment. And it was such a beautiful idea, the story of a person at their lowest ebb, who’s invisible and broken, but who gets seen by this boy who decides to try and put her back together again. I loved this idea that even at your lowest ebb, there is somebody there to help you if you allow them in. Ella tries very hard to try him and make him go away, but he’s relentless.

The irony is that when I read the play Rebecca had sold the rights, but a couple of years later when we actually got the rights Anna – who Rebecca had thought of as too young for the role – had reached 39. And Ray Winstone has a daughter called Ellie, who he calls Els and he has another daughter who is the same age as Anna. It was weird how it all came together at the right time. 

Q. Anna, did you like being told you finally look old enough for this part? 

Paquin: I am so bored of playing significantly younger people than my numerical age. I know you are not ever supposed to complain about looking young in my line of work, but I have absolutely no desire to redo my younger years. It doesn’t necessarily fascinate you when you get older and your priorities and life change. I’ve always been waiting to age into the roles that I want. 

Q. Meanwhile, the youngest character, Neil, is probably the most mature despite his own difficulties in life. 

Moyer: I loved the fact that he speaks plainly and speaks like an adult but he says the things that nobody else will say – he’s the voice of conscience, if you like, of the whole piece, so he’s not a normal 13-year-old boy. 

Q. Like Ella, and also Alan, he’s invisible in his own world. 

Moyer: Exactly. I love the idea of Broken Dad also being put back together. The “bit of light” in the title could be the fact that there is just this tiny, tiny piece of hope that Ella has. But it also could be that wherever Neil, this odd spectral character, travels, he’s the bit of light. Whatever other people he runs into, he helps them cope with the moment that they’re in. He made it his quest to put Ella back together, but in doing so, he affects everybody else around her as well. 

Q. Ella is in constant emotional turmoil. Was that draining and hard to shake off at the end of the day?

Paquin: I don’t know how to do that. I just give it my absolute all and leave absolutely all of it on the floor and walk away. I like that drained feeling. That makes me feel like I’ve done my job well. But to go to emotionally scary or intense places and really open up, you need to feel safe in your surroundings. And I feel really safe with my husband as the director. I know that he’s got my back. We met doing a chemistry read and we were very comfortable with each other from the get-go. 

Q. Is your dynamic the same at home as it is on the set? 

Moyer: On the set I’m lovely, but I’m a monster at home.

Paquin: No, he’s so nice. 

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