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Preliminary observations of the April 5th, 2024, Mw4.8 New Jersey Earthquake

Published

Author(s)

Oliver Boyd, William Barnhart, James Bourke, Martin Chapman, Paul Earle, Guo-chin Dino Huang, Jessica Thompson Jobe, Won-Young Kim, Frederik Link, Mairi Litherland, Andrew Lloyd, Maureen D. Long, Sara McBride, Andrew Michael, Walter Mooney, Gregory Mountain, Aspasia Nikolaou, Alexandros Savvaidis, Felix Waldhauser, Cecily Wolfe, Clara Yoon

Abstract

On April 5, 2024, at 10:23 am local time, a moment magnitude 4.8 earthquake struck Tewksbury Township, NJ, about 65 km west of the New York City metropolitan area. Millions of people from Virginia to Maine and beyond felt the ground shaking, resulting in the largest number (> 180,000) of U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) "Did You Feel It?" reports of any earthquake. In addition to many reports of non-structural damage, the team deployed the next day at the epicentral area by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Geotechnical Extreme Events Reconnaissance Association found minor damage to some structures and significant damage to a historic masonry building in Lebanon, NJ. The USGS National Earthquake Information Center reported a hypocentral depth of 2.6 km and a moment tensor solution at 7 km depth. The focal mechanism solution is strike-slip with a significant thrust component. Neither mechanism nodal plane is parallel to the primary northeast trend of geologic discontinuities and mapped faults in the region, including the Ramapo fault. However, many of the relocated aftershocks form a cluster that parallels the general northeast trend of the faults, lying near the Tewksbury fault, north of the Ramapo fault.
Citation
The Seismic Record (TSR)
Pub Type
Journals

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Keywords

Tewksbury earthquake, New York, New Jersey, seismic resilience, reconnaissance, Central-Eastern United States
Technology transfer, Standards, Resilience, Infrastructure and Buildings and Construction

Citation

Boyd, O. , Barnhart, W. , Bourke, J. , Chapman, M. , Earle, P. , Huang, G. , Thompson Jobe, J. , Kim, W. , Link, F. , Litherland, M. , Lloyd, A. , Long, M. , McBride, S. , Michael, A. , Mooney, W. , Mountain, G. , Nikolaou, A. , Savvaidis, A. , Waldhauser, F. , Wolfe, C. and Yoon, C. (2024), Preliminary observations of the April 5th, 2024, Mw4.8 New Jersey Earthquake, The Seismic Record (TSR), [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=958301 (Accessed April 30, 2025)

Issues

If you have any questions about this publication or are having problems accessing it, please contact reflib@nist.gov.

Created October 1, 2024, Updated March 12, 2025