Funny thing how we started the year with an Earthquake up here (I posted about it on February 3rd here: Earthquake) and I know that a short time after that it happened again (I even think it happened two more times) and I never posted about it, (but, I just looked up when the second one happened and I found this article from nbcnewyork.com) and it has happened yet again.

My father called me today to let me know that the day after Christmas (Dec. 26th for those of you who don’t know when that is) there was another Earthquake with the epicenter in Victory Gardens. I found an article from the Daily Record:

Earthquake struck Victory Gardens over the weekend

By ROB JENNINGS
STAFF WRITER

VICTORY GARDENS — Borough residents fearing something had exploded dashed from their homes into the street upon hearing a “loud boom” that turned out to be a minor earthquake.

The quake, registering a magnitude of 2.0, struck Victory Gardens — the smallest municipality in Morris County — at 6:53 p.m. Saturday, according to a report today on the United States Geological Survey Web site.

It occurred at a depth of 3.7 miles, based on a report by the Lamont-Doherty Cooperative Seismographic Network cited by the geological survey.

Neither injuries nor property damage were reported in the earthquake, which was reminiscent of four minor tremors felt in the Morris County region over a 15-day span last winter.

Borough administrator Deborah Evans, who lives in Victory Gardens, was at home Saturday when she heard what she later described as “a loud boom.”

“I thought it was thunder because it was so warm that day,” Evans said.

Heading outside, she encountered neighbors concerned that the source of the noise was an explosion, fears that proved unfounded.

Don Blakeman, an earthquake analyst for the geological survey based in Golden, Colo., said minor quakes tend to draw more attention on the East Coast, where tremors are far less common than along the San Andreas Fault.

A 2.0 quake in California, he added, might go unnoticed by residents.

“The (East Coast) crust is very much older and rigid and conducts an earthquake’s energy better,” he said.

Asked to describe a typical minor earthquake, Blakeman said it is experienced as a “very sharp kind of a jolt,” lasting only a few seconds, in which people tend to mistakenly assume objects have crashed into their houses.

We weren’t home for this one, so I can’t tell you a story or anything, but I thought I’d post it up on here.

–Cos