Does New Jersey Get Earthquakes?

Earthquakes are potent natural disasters that have the power to collapse buildings, tear apart the land, and spawn life-threatening tsunamis. While New Jersey’s national reputation isn’t that great in some respects, at least the Garden State is not frequently devastated by natural disasters. Of course, the state is not immune to them, either. So, does New Jersey get earthquakes?

Discover the Garden State’s recent history with earthquakes and find out why people have to even question the existence of these natural disasters in the region.

Does New Jersey Get Earthquakes?

Yes, New Jersey gets earthquakes. Fortunately, the quakes that strike New Jersey are often small and weak. In fact, the quakes are so infrequent and ineffective that people in the state barely feel them. They do not cause much in the way of damage, either. Some of the recorded damages in the Garden State include collapsed chimneys, some cracks in masonry, and items knocked over.

The damage caused by New Jersey’s earthquakes is easily described as unsubstantial. As a result, it is completely normal to believe that earthquakes in New Jersey are even rarer than data suggests.

However, occasionally, New Jersey does get a noticeable earthquake, but nothing like those seen in California or Alaska.

How Many Earthquakes Does New Jersey Get Each Year?

New Jersey gets somewhere between 8 and 16 earthquakes per year. However, only a handful of them are felt by people in the state. The Northeast States Emergency Consortium gathered data about earthquakes experienced in the state between 1738 and 2016.

During that time, New Jersey had experienced 98 “felt” earthquakes. Those are the quakes that people notice, not the ones that are too weak for people to feel. Unfelt quakes are the majority of those that strike this part of the Northeast.

According to the United States Geological Survey, New Jersey has recorded 194 earthquakes from March 1957 to February 2024. That figure includes all earthquakes with an epicenter in New Jersey, even those that measure below magnitude 1. Typically, a quake needs to be a magnitude 3.5 or higher for a person to notice it.  

While New Jersey gets plenty of earthquakes, they’re mostly too weak for anyone to notice.

Sources of Earthquakes in the Garden State

States like California, Oregon, and Washington get earthquakes due to the presence of the Cascadia Subduction Zone. In this region, the Juan de Fuca, Gorda, and Explorer plates are subducting below the North American Plate. This process can generate very powerful earthquakes.

However, New Jersey is far from the boundaries of the North American Plate, so intraplate earthquakes are the cause of quakes in this state.

If we look closer at New Jersey’s earthquakes, we’ll see that their epicenters are mostly spread throughout the northern part of the state. Some scientists believe that the Ramapo fault is responsible for at least a few of the earthquakes that have struck New Jersey in the past.

This fault runs from southeastern New York, through the top of New Jersey, and passes into Pennsylvania. The fault lies between the Appalachian Mountains and the Piedmont, a plateau in the eastern United States. However, scientists need more data to tie specific earthquakes to the fault.

What Was the Strongest Earthquake to Hit New Jersey?

This question has a few answers. The strongest earthquake with an epicenter in New Jersey was a magnitude 4.8 event that struck on August 23, 1938. This quake struck just southeast of Trenton, and it caused damage to homes by knocking items from shelves.

However, other strong quakes have affected New Jersey even though their respective epicenters are outside of the state. For example, one of the more recent and powerful earthquakes in New Jersey’s history struck in 2011.

In that case, a magnitude 5.8 earthquake occurred near Mineral, Virginia. Millions of people felt this earthquake, from New England to Florida. This quake caused between $100 million and $300 million in damage. Fortunately, nobody died as a result of this quake.

This earthquake was significant due to the large area it affected and the damage it caused. Although this quake is probably one of the most memorable to hit the state in recent years, it’s not the only reasonably strong one to strike New Jersey in living memory. A magnitude 3.9 earthquake struck New Jersey on February 28, 1973. This event damaged masonry throughout New Jersey, Delaware, and Pennsylvania. Still, other powerful quakes could have struck the region in the past.

So, does New Jersey get earthquakes? Yes, but they are typically too weak for people to notice them. Every once in a while, though, a quake strong enough to feel rumbles through the area. Fortunately, even the largest and most powerful earthquakes to strike the Garden State have not caused any recorded deaths or widespread destruction. Hopefully, that will remain the case well into the future.   

The photo featured at the top of this post is © JackTheVicar / CC BY-SA 3.0 – License / Original