“Did you feel that? Are you okay?” This is what many people asked their family and friends around Pace University this morning when the campus was greeted with shocks from a nearby earthquake. Near Whitehouse Station, New Jersey at 10:25 AM, an earthquake was detected of a magnitude of 4.8. This part of New Jersey sits on the Ramapo fault line and has more frequent earthquakes because of it. According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), this was the third-largest earthquake recorded in the area in the last five decades.
Shocks reached as far west as Philadelphia, north of Boston, and south as Norfolk, Virginia. You might have felt the room shake in the tri-state area, but no damage has been reported.
Members inside buildings on campus reported shaking at 10:30 AM this morning for as long as 10 seconds.
Faculty and students in Mortola Library on the second and third floors quickly filed downstairs when the shaking began. The bookshelves on the first floor did shake, but no glass cracked, nor did any books get damaged.
Resident students living in Elm, North, Alumni, and Martin Hall reported feeling vibrations and rumbling on all floors. One student who was on the 4th floor of Elm Hall at the time of the earthquake told their roommate that the shaking made them think that “the building was going to collapse”.
A shelter-in-place order was not put in effect by Pace University. School communications did affirm it was an earthquake but gave an “All clear” in a mass email and text message.
At 6:00 PM, an aftershock of a 4.0 magnitude hit 7 km SW of Gladstone, New Jersey. Shaking floors and walls in resident halls on the Pleasantville campus were reported. Researchers say more aftershocks will occur in the near future.
Earthquakes in the northeast are rare, but they may become more frequent with a changing climate. The United States Geological Survey reported in January that 75% of the U.S. could experience a damaging earthquake in the next 100 years.
Earthquakes with magnitudes near or above 5 that struck near New York City previously occurred in 1737, 1783, and 1884, according to USGS.
If you want to keep up to date with the earthquake, click here for the USGS website.