The ETSZ is one of the most active earthquake zones in the eastern United States. Looking at the map with all the earthquake locations shown with red dots (click map for larger image), you can see a diffuse belt of seismicity that generally follows the Appalachian Mountains. First there are the most ancient crystalline … Some seismologists have argued that this fault has the potential to produce a major earthquake,Earthquake rates in the northeastern U.S. are 100 times lower than in California, but the earthquakes that do occur in the northeastern U.S. are typically felt over a much broader region than earthquakes of the same magnitude in the western U.S.The northeastern U.S. has many known faults, but numerous smaller or deeply buried faults probably remain undetected. These faults run between the Appalachian Mountains and Piedmont areas to the east. Barstow (1985), Earthquake Activity in the Greater New York City Area: Magnitudes, Seismicity, and Geologic Structures, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, 75(1), 1285–1300.Kafka, A.L. Furthermore, when these rare eastern U.S. events do occur, the areas affected by them are on average ten times as large as western ones for events of the same magnitude.Earthquakes in the greater New York City area affect most of New Jersey, Just off the northern terminus of the Ramapo fault is the Aggarwal, Y.P. Ramapo Fault Line The Ramapo Fault Line spans 300 kilometers and affects the states of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. While we cannot say for certain that this event will lead to anything much bigger, it is statistically unlikely that it is a precursor to a larger event to come. Small earthquakes like this one are common in the east US (Earthquakes in the eastern US almost never have surface rupture because even if they are moderate in size, the causative faults are all blind and mostly occur within deep basement rock. Even though this region is not on an active plate boundary (such as the San Andreas Fault, where the North American and Pacific plates are sliding past one another), we can still have motion within a plate. Structural and stratigraphic development of the Newark extensional basin, eastern North America: Evidence for the growth of the basin and its bounding structures. The Eastern Tennessee Seismic Zone (ETSZ), also known as the East Tennessee Seismic Zone and the Southern Appalachian Seismic Zone, is a geographic band stretching from northeastern Alabama to southwestern Virginia that is subject to frequent small earthquakes. Every time you feel an earthquake, it's very important to go to the My opinion (based on very little data) is that this event is an aftershock related to the M2.9 event that happened in the same place last August.The United States Geological Survey (USGS) has the most up-to-date information on all US Earthquakes. Armbruster, W.Y. We feel earthquakes on the east coast a lot further from their epicenter compared to the west coast, because the crust is older and colder, and waves can travel through it more efficiently. As in most other areas east of the Rocky Mountains, the best guide to earthquake hazard in the northeastern U.S. is probably the locations of past earthquakes themselves.
In fact, we may not ever get a reliable focal mechanism or moment tensor from the event because the event was very small and there are far fewer continuously operating seismometers in the eastern U.S. You may notice an area of increased seismicity just west of us. Scientists have done numerous studies and have shown that in most regions on Earth, there is no correlation of earthquakes with time of year.Copyright 2020 Appalachian State University. That’s a lot of error! On August 9, 2020, many of us in the region felt the Very little is clear about this event except that it appears to have occurred on a NNW-trending reverse fault. The Ramapo Fault zone is a system of faults between the northern Appalachian Mountains and Piedmont areas to the east.
M.A. Kim, and L. Seeber (2008), Observations and Tectonic Setting of Historic and Instrumentally Located Earthquakes in the Greater New York City–Philadelphia Area, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, 98(4), 1696–1719.Kafka, A.L. EW compression).There is not enough known yet about this particular earthquake to be able to say in which direction the causative fault slipped or why it slipped the way it did.