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US » Magnitude 2.4 - GREATER NEW YORK AREA, NEW JERSEY

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Magnitude 2.4 - GREATER NEW YORK AREA, NEW JERSEY

2009 February 14 22:22:22 UTC

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Earthquake Details

Magnitude

2.4

Date-Time

Saturday, February 14, 2009 at 22:22:22 UTC

Saturday, February 14, 2009 at 05:22:22 PM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location

40.948°N, 74.392°W

Depth

2 km (1.2 miles)

Region

GREATER NEW YORK AREA, NEW JERSEY

Distances

5 km (3 miles) NNE (17°) from Boonton, NJ

5 km (3 miles) SSW (200°) from Kinnelon, NJ

7 km (4 miles) SW (214°) from Butler, NJ

18 km (11 miles) NNE (24°) from Morristown, NJ

20 km (12 miles) W (281°) from Paterson, NJ

48 km (30 miles) NW (304°) from New York,
NY

Location
Uncertainty

horizontal +/- 0.2 km (0.1 miles); depth +/- 0.8 km (0.5 miles)

Parameters

NST= 14, Nph= 29, Dmin=19.1 km, Rmss=0.23 sec, Gp=
86°,
M-type=duration magnitude (Md), Version=1

Source

Lamont-Doherty
Cooperative Seismographic Network (LCSN)

Event
ID

ld1023313

This event has been reviewed by a seismologist.

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you feel it? Report shaking and damage at your location. You can
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Earthquake Summary

Tectonic Summary

EARTHQUAKES IN THE NEW YORK - PHILADELPHIA - WILMINGTON URBAN CORRIDOR

Since colonial
times people in the New York - Philadelphia - Wilmington urban corridor have
felt small earthquakes and suffered damage from infrequent larger ones. New York
City was damaged in 1737 and 1884. Moderately damaging earthquakes strike
somewhere in the urban corridor roughly twice a century, and smaller earthquakes
are felt roughly every 2-3 years.

Earthquakes in the central and eastern U.S., although less frequent than in
the western U.S., are typically felt over a much broader region. East of the
Rockies, an earthquake can be felt over an area as much as ten times larger than
a similar magnitude earthquake on the west coast. A magnitude 4.0 eastern U.S.
earthquake typically can be felt at many places as far as 100 km (60 mi) from
where it occurred, and it infrequently causes damage near its source. A
magnitude 5.5 eastern U.S. earthquake usually can be felt as far as 500 km (300
mi) from where it occurred, and sometimes causes damage as far away as 40 km (25
mi).

FAULTS
Earthquakes everywhere occur on faults within bedrock,
usually miles deep. Most bedrock beneath the urban corridor was assembled as
continents collided to form a supercontinent about 500-300 million years ago,
raising the Appalachian Mountains. Most of the rest of the bedrock formed when
the supercontinent rifted apart about 200 million years ago to form what are now
the northeastern U.S., the Atlantic Ocean, and Europe.

At well-studied plate boundaries like the San Andreas fault system in
California, often scientists can determine the name of the specific fault that
is responsible for an earthquake. In contrast, east of the Rocky Mountains this
is rarely the case. New York City, Philadelphia, and Wilmington are far from the
nearest plate boundaries, which are in the center of the Atlantic Ocean and in
the Caribbean Sea. The urban corridor is laced with known faults but numerous
smaller or deeply buried faults remain undetected. Even the known faults are
poorly located at earthquake depths. Accordingly, few, if any, earthquakes in
the urban corridor can be linked to named faults. It is difficult to determine
if a known fault is still active and could slip and cause an earthquake. As in
most other areas east of the Rockies, the best guide to earthquake hazards in
the New York - Philadelphia - Wilmington urban corridor is the earthquakes
themselves.

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U.S. Department of the Interior
| U.S. Geological Survey
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Contact Information: EHP Web Team
Page Last Modified: February 17, 2009 16:01:30
UTC