New fault line discovered in New Jersey
The Mountainville Fault has been discovered and linked to the 2024 earthquake in New Jersey. That quake, with an epicenter in Tewksbury, New Jersey was originally thought to be from the Ramapo Fault line.
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A 2024 earthquake centered in New Jersey was felt all along the eastern seaboard. It’s long been thought that the source was the Ramapo Fault line. But it turns out the source of the quake was the newly discovered Mountainville Fault.
The epicenter of the 4.8 magnitude quake was Tewksbury, New Jersey. A new study in the “Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth,” suggests the source is the newly found “Mountainville Fault” based on studies of the topography of the region and location of the aftershocks.
The study suggests that the Mountainville Fault dips east into the earth at a 45-degree angle, sending all of the quake's energy in different directions.
While this information doesn’t help to predict a future quake experts suggest it’s important to know these exist.
“New Jersey is not a region where we have a lot of earthquake hazards it’s like in California, or Chile or Japan or the Philippines. Having said that we shouldn’t be too worried about it but we should always be aware of the future quakes of this similar size," said Yoshi Miyazaki, assistant professor with the Rutgers University Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences
Mountainville Fault is identified as an immature fault line.
The 2024 earthquake didn’t cause any severe damage in Tewksbury.
The study suggests that due to the nature of the fault it spread out and caused some damage in places like Newark, and New York. The shaking from earth moving was felt as far north as Maine and in Virginia to the south.
