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Experts had a theory on what triggered the 2024 New Jersey earthquake. They were wrong

nbcnewyork.com · 7h · first reportShare

New Jersey was rattled by a sizable earthquake in 2024, and now there is a new working theory as to what may have caused it: a previously unknown fault line in the state. The epicenter of the magnitude-4.8 quake in April 2024 was in Hunterdon County, in a typically very peaceful and quiet area. “We felt the rumble and we heard the noise. It was very loud,” said Joe Rega, who lives right up the road from where the earthquake struck. “At first we thought it was a truck that hit the building, but it kept going. I said, ‘This was an earthquake!’ I came home, everything on the mantle was knocked down, my dogs were freaking out.” For more than two years since then, the theory has been that the quake was caused by the Ramapo Fault. But new research suggests that was not the case. Fola Kolawole, an associate professor at Columbia University, spent months studying seismic activity in the area with a team of researchers. He said that based on where the epicenter of the earthquake was, it could n