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(Huntington, NY 8/23/11 -2:03 pm) An earthquake registering 5.8 on the Richter scale hit the east coast today at 1:51pm. The epicenter was reported 85 miles SW of Washington D.C. The earthquake was 3.7 miles deep. A large shock wave was felt in Huntington, NY. Aftershocks are possible over the next few hours.
There were evacuations of buildings as a precaution. While it is unusual for us to feel earthquakes it is not a rare event. New York used to have much more frequent earthquakes in the past. There are know faults in this area.
Here is a map of historic earthquakes in our area greater than or equal to a magnitude 3:
In the top figure, closed red circles indicate 1924-2006 epicenters and open black circles indicate locations of the larger earthquakes that occurred in 1737, 1783 and 1884. Green lines indicate the trace of the Ramapo fault.
A USGS website with more information is here
A USGS earthquake intensity map is here.
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