Weather Tidbits: Earthquakes

This Weather Tidbits will discuss about earthquakes. An earthquake occurs when a fault line. Fault lines are most prominent along the boundary of two of the 7 major tectonic plates on Earth. Tectonic Plates are constantly moving, but some times the stress against each of the plates can overcome the friction exerted. This causes the plates along the fault to become displaced, resulting in the shaking feeling at the surface during an earthquake. The west coast of the United States is on the boarder between the North American Plate and the Pacific Plate with the San Andreas Faultline being the primary divider. This large scale boundary is the reason by the west coast has a higher probability for earthquakes than the east coast. Although earthquakes on the east coast are not impossible.

On April 5, 2024, a magnitude 4.8 earthquake struck near Whitehouse Station in northern New Jersey at a shallow depth of about 3 miles. This earthquake was primarily driven by a stress buildup and eventual displacement along the Ramapo fault line, The Ramapo fault line is embedded within the North American Plate and runs across northern New Jersey. This fault line does not divide any of the 7 major tectonic plates, so the stress buildup and energy release during an earthquake along the Ramapo fault line is not as strong as a fault line along the division between two major tectonic plates. This makes the 4.8 magnitude earthquake highly anomalous for New Jersey. The Richter Scale shows that earthquakes approaching a 5.0 magnitude can do some property damage. But catastrophic damage does not usually occur until an earthquake reached a 7.0 magnitude or greater.