A N.J. earthquake rocked several areas about 35 miles outside of New York City on Friday morning. It was about 3:41 a.m. when the 2.7 magnitude earthquake struck approximately two miles north of Bernardsville, N.J.
USGS geophysicist Zachery Reeves said the initial report came in from 78 people.
Stuart Heiser was in N.J. visiting family in Morris Plains when the earthquake rattled the house in which he was staying. He said he thought perhaps a tree had fallen.
“It lasted one second, but it was definitely loud enough and physically violent enough to wake everyone up,” he said.
Won-Young-Kim heads the seismic network for Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. He said quakes like this N.J. earthquake happen in that area every few years, however “we can’t rule out bigger ones because a magnitude 5 hit around New York Harbor in the 1870s.”
The last time an earthquake rattled parts of N.J. was December 13, 2014 when a 1.9 magnitude earthquake struck about 17 miles east-southeast of Trenton.
Small Earthquake Felt In Bernardsville, New Jersey http://t.co/xRBddh9Mqn
— CBS New York (@CBSNewYork) August 14, 2015
Do you live in New Jersey? Are you near the location that was shaken by the early morning earthquake on Friday?
Were you completely aware that it was an earthquake you were experiencing?
It’s likely that most N.J. residents either didn’t realize an earthquake was shaking their region or their didn’t realize what the sensation they were experiencing really was.
It’s not unusual for people to think a very mild earthquake is something else entirely–a passing train or sometimes even the furnace in their very own homes.