A small 2.9 magnitude earthquake rattled New Jersey on Saturday morning, simply three weeks after a extra forceful 4.8 quake hit the Backyard State and surrounding areas.Â
The pure phenomenon hit close to Tewksbury this morning at round 9:49 a.m., based on the U.S. Geological Survey. Tewksbury is positioned in Hunterdon County, which is about 35 miles west of New York Metropolis.Â
It’s unclear if the seismic exercise was an aftershock from the April 5 earthquake. That occasion was centered close to Whitehouse Station, which is about 5 miles south of Tewksbury, and was felt from Washington D.C. to Maine, based on the USGS.
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Ashley Papa, a Fox Information Digital editor dwelling in New Jersey, says she felt Saturday’s quake rock her house.
“I used to be within the kitchen with my toddler and abruptly we began feeling the home shake fairly strongly and we heard that very same rumbling sound from the day of the [April 5] earthquake,” Papa stated.Â
Greater than 130 aftershocks have been recorded within the area because the April 5 rattler, which was estimated to have been felt by greater than 42 million individuals in 14 states.
“I’d must say it was the strongest aftershock since that day besides this time I knew what I used to be feeling, in contrast to that Friday once I had no concept what was happening,” Papa stated.
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“I feel we’re all simply in shock that that is nonetheless happening. I figured we might by no means really feel something like this once more for an additional hundred years and right here we’re a few month later nonetheless feeling robust aftershocks, it simply makes us marvel what’s going on? And naturally, our canine is terrified and can possible by no means be the identical once more.”
Earthquakes are uncommon alongside the East Coast, with essentially the most highly effective one within the final 100 years hitting in August 2011, clocking 5.8 on the Richter scale. It was centered in Virginia and felt from Washington, D.C. to Boston.
The latest quakes comply with a 1.7 magnitude earthquake in New York Metropolis on Jan. 2.Â
Professor John Ebel, a seismologist within the Division of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Boston School, advised Fox Information Digital not too long ago {that a} quake above 5.0 on the Richter scale typically strikes as soon as each 120 years.Â
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“The query is, can we’ve one thing larger? And in my view, sure we will,” he stated. “We won’t predict earthquakes, and we do not know when the following one goes to happen, however we do have a low, not insignificant likelihood of a harmful earthquake sooner or later.”
Ebel stated that the April 5 earthquake has left seismologists baffled because it didn’t happen on the Ramapo Fault zone, highlighting simply how onerous it’s to foretell the phenomenon from occurring.Â
The Ramapo Fault zone is a sequence of small fault strains that runs by means of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Spanning greater than 185 miles, it was shaped about 200 million years in the past.