4.8 magnitude Earthquake hits in New Jersey, felt across Riverhead and the northeast

Updated- 12 15 p.m.: A 4.8 magnitude earthquake hit New Jersey around 10:23 a.m. this morning, and could be felt throughout Riverhead and the northeast United States. 

The earthquake hit 7 km north-northeast of Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The depth of the earthquake was 4.7 km.

New York City was damaged in 1737 and 1884 from earthquakes, according to the U.S.G.S. Moderately damaging earthquakes strike somewhere in the New York – Philadelphia – Wilmington Urban Corridor roughly twice a century, and smaller earthquakes are felt roughly every 2-3 years, according to the U.S.G.S.

According to the U.S.G.S’s “Shake Map” of the earthquake, the Riverhead area felt the earthquake’s intensity about half of the intensity necessary to damage buildings.

“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,” according to a U.S.G.S article on the region’s earthquakes. “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).”

Earthquakes occur on faults within bedrock, usually miles deep, according to the U.S.G.S. 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, according to the U.S.G.S. 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.

Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, that the “earthquake hit west of Manhattan and has been felt throughout New York.” She wrote, “My team is assessing impacts and any damage that may have occurred, and we will update the public throughout the day.

A magnitude 2.0 aftershock occurred around at 11:20 a.m. about 4 miles from Bedminster, New Jersey.

Editor’s note: This article was updated shortly after publication to reflect a change in the USGS’s assessment of the earthquake’s magnitude and to include new information from the USGS‘s website about the earthquake.