A preliminary 4.8 magnitude earthquake centered in northern New Jersey on Friday sent shockwaves across hundreds of miles of the Northeast, affecting regions from Washington, DC, to New England. The US Geological Survey attributes the widespread impact of the quake to several factors.
The earthquake was relatively shallow, occurring just 5 km beneath the Earth's surface. Shallow earthquakes, defined as those between 0 to 70 km deep, tend to produce more intense shaking at the surface compared to deeper ones of the same magnitude due to the shorter distance for energy to travel.
