Did Anyone Feel Wednesday Morning’s Earthquake in New Jersey?

Add another one for the 2020 scorecard: earthquakes. In this particular case, the U.S. Geological Survey is reporting that the tremor struck near Freehold Township, New Jersey early Wednesday morning. While the quake only measured a 3.1 on the Richter Scale, tremors of any kind are fairly rare in the Northeast.

However, the quake was felt pretty far outside of Monmouth County, with some reports of minor shaking coming in all the way from New York City, Long Island, and even Westchester County.

While rare, and often weak, earthquakes do happen sometimes in this part of the country. In December 2019, a 2.1 tremor was reported near Sodus Point, off the coast of Lake Ontario.

Some strike even closer to home. In April 2017, a 1.3 tremor occurred around two and half miles west of Pawling. In early 2016, an even smaller quake happened near Port Chester and Greenwich, CT. In the summer of 2019, a quake struck off the New Jersey coast.

The most well known fault line near our area is the Ramapo fault line. The 185 mile system of faults runs through parts of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, and has been known to spawn usually small earthquakes.

On August 23, 2011, a 5.8 quake, that was centered in Virginia, was felt all the way up the east coast. Several moderate (at least a 5 on the Richter scale) quakes have occurred near New York City in 1737, 1783 and 1884.