Earthquakes large enough to be felt by a lot of people are relatively uncommon on the East Coast
East Coast residents were jolted Friday by a 4.8-magnitude earthquake centered near Lebanon, New Jersey, with weak rumblings felt as far away as Baltimore and the Massachusetts-New Hampshire border. No life-threatening injuries or major damage have been reported.
Here’s what to know about earthquakes on the East Coast.
Earthquakes large enough to be felt by a lot of people are relatively uncommon on the East Coast. Since 1950 there have been about 20 quakes with a magnitude above 4.5, according to the United States Geological Survey. That’s compared with over 1,000 on the West Coast.
That said, East Coast quakes like the one experienced Friday do happen.
“There’s a history of similar-sized earthquakes in the New York region over the last few hundred years,” said Jessica Thompson Jobe from the USGS’ Earthquake Hazards Program.
In 2011, a 5.8 magnitude earthquake near Mineral, Virginia, shook East Coast residents over a wide swath from Georgia to Maine and even southeastern Canada.
