Magnitude 4.8 earthquake felt in New Jersey and New York
Fox Weathers Adam Klotz provides details on New Jersey earthquake. Weston Observatory professor John Ebel discusses the possibility of aftershocks and why the magnitude estimate fluctuated in the minutes after the initial earthquake.
A small magnitude 2.9 earthquake shook New Jersey Saturday morning, just three weeks after a more powerful 4.8 earthquake struck the Garden State and surrounding areas.
The natural phenomenon struck near Tewksbury this morning around 9:49 a.m., according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Tewksbury is located in Hunterdon County, approximately 35 miles west of New York City.
It is unclear whether the seismic activity was an aftershock of the April 5 earthquake. This event was centered near Whitehouse Station, about five miles south of Tewksbury, and was felt from Washington DC to Maine, according to the USGS.
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A small magnitude 2.9 earthquake shook New Jersey Saturday morning, just three weeks after a more powerful 4.8 earthquake struck the Garden State and surrounding areas. (United States Geological Survey)
Ashley Papa, a Fox News Digital editor living in New Jersey, said she felt Saturday's earthquake shake her home.
“I was in the kitchen with my toddler and all of a sudden we started to feel the house shaking quite badly and we heard the same rumbling from the day of the [April 5] earthquake,” Dad said.
More than 130 aftershocks have been recorded in the region since the April 5 earthquake, which was reportedly felt by more than 42 million people in 14 states.
“I have to say it was the strongest line since that day, except this time I knew what I felt, unlike that Friday when I had no idea what was going on,” Papa said .
Two Bourbon Street Wine and Sprits employees hold back shelves full of alcohol in New Jersey during the April 5 earthquake. (Chris Beard)
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“I think we're all in shock that this is still going on. I thought we'd never feel anything like this again for a hundred years and here we are about a month later, still feeling strong aftershocks, it just makes us wonder what's going on? And of course our dog is terrified and will probably never be the same again.”
Earthquakes are rare along the East Coast, with the strongest in the last 100 years occurring in August 2011, measuring 5.8 on the Richter scale. It was centered in Virginia and felt from Washington, D.C. to Boston.
The recent earthquakes follow a 1.7 magnitude earthquake that occurred in New York on January 2.
People walk in Lower Manhattan moments after New York City and parts of New Jersey suffered a 4.8 magnitude earthquake on April 5, 2024. (Earthquake on the East Coast)
Professor John Ebel, a seismologist in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Boston College, recently told Fox News Digital that an earthquake greater than 5.0 on the Richter scale typically occurs once every the 120 years.
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“The question is: Can we have something bigger? And in my opinion, yes, we can,” he said. “We can't predict earthquakes, and we don't know when the next one will occur, but we have a small, but not negligible, chance that a devastating earthquake will occur at some point.”
Ebel said the April 5 earthquake left seismologists perplexed since it did not occur in the Ramapo Fault zone, emphasizing how difficult it is to predict the phenomenon will occur.
The Ramapo Fault Zone is a series of small fault lines that cross New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Stretching over 185 miles, it was formed around 200 million years ago.