On April 5th, in Hunterdon, New Jersey, there was a ground-breaking, well more like a ground-shaking, earthquake! This 4.8 magnitude earthquake had everyone in the surrounding areas quite surprised.

Earthquakes in the eastern United States are infrequent but not completely out of the question. The hypocenter is the area below the Earth’s surface where the earthquake started, directly above it is the epicenter on Earth’s surface, which was about 40 miles west of New York City in Whitehouse Station.

The magnitude and effect of an earthquake, according to Michigan Technological University is: Below 2.5 magnitude are generally not felt, 2.5 to 5.4 are minor or no damage, 5.5-to 6.0 is slight damage to buildings, 6.1 to 6.9: serious damage, 8.0 or greater: massive damage, can destroy communities. 

Only when everyone thought these surprising earthquakes were over, up to a hundred aftershocks were reported around New York and New Jersey. Aftershocks are a sequence of earthquakes after a larger mainshock on a fault. They occur near the mainshock rupture’s fault zone and are part of the readjustment process. However, during this readjustment process, the aftershocks that struck these areas were not strong enough to feel intense tremors, only a slight shake that lasted less than a minute. These shocks were weak and had an intensity of less than 2.0 magnitude, which is very low on the Richter scale. 

At 10:23am after the earthquake, people rushed to social media to find out if there was an earthquake or just a figment of their imagination. Many had mixed emotions about what had just happened, first wondering “is the bass in my car really that good?” Then, after it was confirmed that an earthquake had occurred it was the topic of discussion for the next week, which left everyone asking, “did you feel that?”