Did you feel rumbling in Centre County? New Jersey earthquake felt in central PA
Centre County residents reported they felt rumbling Friday after an earthquake shook a densely populated New York City metropolitan area, according to data gathered by the U.S. Geological Survey.
The agency reported an earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 4.8, centered about 45 miles west of New York City and 50 miles north of Philadelphia.
Centre County dispatchers posted on Facebook that the rumbling could be felt in Penns Valley and the Ferguson Township area. In response to the post, a woman wrote she also felt rumbling in Spring Township.
The county’s emergency management agency is tracking the reports, according to the post. Dispatchers encouraged residents to only call 911 if it’s an emergency.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro posted on X that the quake was felt in parts of the state. The state’s Emergency Management Agency is “actively monitoring the situation and in contact with counties on any damage. We will keep Pennsylvanians updated,” Shapiro posted.
Reports of rumbling received by the U.S. Geological Survey span much of the Northeast, an area where tens of millions aren’t accustomed to feeling the ground move. More than 120,000 people reported feeling rumbling.
Kevin Furlong, a Penn State professor of geosciences, said the earthquake occurred in a zone where small quakes are felt on a regular basis, about once a year. With a preliminary magnitude of 4.8, Furlong said it was one of the larger earthquakes in the area.
He also described it as a “very shallow” earthquake. It occurred at a depth of about three miles; most occur at a depth of about 12-15 miles, he said.
“By being shallow, it is felt more strongly,” Furlong said. “The deeper you go, the more the energy gets dispersed.”
East Coast earthquakes are less common because it does not lie on a boundary of tectonic plates, slabs of the Earth’s crust that slide past each other and build pressure when they get stuck.
Most earthquakes on this side of the country are caused because the crust is “being squeezed a little bit from a long-term geological processes,” Furlong said.
“There is a stress in the crust that gets released by these moderate earthquakes that pop off in different places,” Furlong said. “This is a totally different process of building up the stress and releasing it from what happened in Taiwan. Taiwan was because two plates are colliding there.”
Earthquakes on the East Coast are also felt across greater distances, Pennsylvania Seismic Network Manager Kyle Homman said, because of the “nature of the geology between the two places.”
Among the most recent earthquakes felt in Centre County was a 3.4-magnitude earthquake with an epicenter in Juniata County. The 2019 quake was the first of its magnitude in central Pennsylvania since 1991.
