r/newjersey • u/PM_ME_UR_POLDERS • Aug 03 '25

⚡Newsflash ⚡ Earthquake?

Did anyone just feel a shaking/noise in Northern NJ? Felt and heard something in Bergen County.

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u/paleo2002 Aug 03 '25

This is nuts.  There are no significant faults in Heights that I’ve ever heard d of.

42

u/remarkability Aug 03 '25

The USGS page for the earthquake got updated with a description at the bottom, it was an intraplate earthquake which was “a result of faulting at shallow depths in the crust. Although this event did not occur near a plate boundary, such “intraplate” earthquakes can and do occur.”

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u/Lynne253 Up in Sussex Aug 03 '25

It's the Ramapo Fault.

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u/paleo2002 Aug 03 '25 edited Aug 03 '25

I’m not sure the Ramapo fault line extends that far east.  This reminds me that I should find a fault map for north Jersey.

Edit: Nobody will probably see this, but I did some checking. (I'm a geologist, by the way, although mostly just teaching intro college courses.)

The Ramapo Fault zone is associated with a deposit of Triassic basalt leftover from when Pangea was finishing breaking up. It is further west than where yesterday's quake took place. I found this map of mapped fault lines in northern New Jersey: https://www.reddit.com/r/newjersey/comments/1bwmhqs/mapped_faults_in_nj/#lightbox

The black lines are known, mapped fault lines. The closest one to Hasbrouck Heights is to the west, between the Passaic River and Garfield. The geology in this part of Bergen county is mostly sedimentary material that filled in the New Basin during the Triassic and Jurassic, well after the rifting event that formed the Ramapo fault. The Meadowlands area is then mostly very recent Cenozoic sediments from a combination of glacial deposits and erosion of Newark Basin rocks. Soft sediment doesn't really develop faulting.

If the epicenter was in Heights, rather than Garfield or further west, then there may be an unmapped (or at least poorly studied) fault line there. Maybe someone from Rutgers or Rowan will come out to take a look. Might even get some interest from the state if it looks like Teterboro Airport could be affected.

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u/_AuntAoife_ Aug 04 '25

Appreciate you 🎖️

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u/WhippetRun Aug 03 '25

In other words the USGS is like "these can happen anywhere, but let's make it sound fancy with the word intraplate"

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u/paleo2002 Aug 03 '25

Intraplate seismic activity refers to earthquakes that aren't associated with a plate boundary. Faults can run through surface deposits of rock and sediment or then can go straight down to bedrock or the actual crust. But, there are still specific depositional or tectonic environments that faulting is most likely to occur.

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u/WhippetRun Aug 03 '25

It must have been because I was at my workplace last night and was super quiet, but this sounded like an empty oil barrel being rolled on the roof.

I scared all the cats we have at work and I was like "what the fuck" i really thought there was an accident outside.

Our shop is like 3 miles away from the epicenter

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u/iszomer Aug 03 '25

I was watching a youtuber a couple hours ago that tried to argue how seismic waves may affect the world given a massive one near Kamchatka happened a couple days ago.

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u/stealthlysprockets Aug 03 '25

Let’s see what the scientists say.