Did you feel the earth move? Seacoast reacts to earthquake

Did you feel the earth move under your feet Friday morning in New Hampshire?

You weren't the only one. An earthquake, a 4.8 magnitude quake recorded in Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, was felt throughout the Northeast, including in New Hampshire communities like Hampton, Exeter, Kingston and Seabrook.

A number of readers reached out to us by email and social media to share their experience.

"I felt the earthquake," said Beth Saltmarsh-Smith of Hampton. "At first I thought the wind was rocking my house again. But no. Earthquake!"

"We live in the condominiums on the Route 1 Bypass and felt the earthquake tremors this morning," said Karen Schoenrock of Portsmouth. "We commonly feel movement from large trucks passing or high winds, but this was noticeably different. I stepped into the kitchen area just as the tea kettle on the gas stovetop, and that area began to rattle for several seconds."

"I was sitting in my office chair on Seabrook Beach when I felt it rock back and forth," said Jocelyne Winter. "I held very still, thinking it might be someone doing construction nearby or maybe the HVAC rumbling, but I realized the floor was also shaking and very quickly realized it was a tremor I was experiencing. I texted my family at 10:26 to report it and I scoured the internet for a while to see if anyone reported the same thing but didn’t see the New York earthquake news for another hour!"

"Lindsay Road in York, Maine, felt the effects of the Earthquake," said Janet Clark of York. "That’s how far the tremors came. My house shook and felt like a truck rammed it. My next-door neighbor had lamps and table shake too."

Gail Kinsey said she felt the earthquake in Concord on the Penacook line.

"My three-story, 60-condo unit building swayed as well as the draperies," she said. "I was doing a breathing exercise and thought perhaps I had over-oxygenated."

Where was the earthquake?

The epicenter of the earthquake was in Whitehouse Station, Hunterdon County, at 10:23 a.m.

The earthquake was 4.77 kilometers North Northeast of White House Station, New Jersey and the depth was five kilometers. People as far away as Bear, Delaware, and Germantown, New York, felt the rumble.

In addition to New Hampshire, residents of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, Maine and Vermont reported feeling the impact.

If you felt the earthquake in New Hampshire and Maine, reach out to us @seacoastonline in social media or email news@seacoastonline.com.

Earthquakes common in the region, but the size is unusual: Expert

Dr. Chuck Ver Straeten, a geologist and curator of sedimentary rocks at the New York State Museum, told USA TODAY it’s not surprising this earthquake happened where it did.

“New York, around New York City going into New Jersey, there’s a lot of earthquakes historically down there. Happens every year,” he said. But it’s less common for them to be of such a high magnitude. It’s not surprising that many people felt it, he said. Usually, earthquakes in the region are at a lower magnitude and less likely to be felt.

Ver Straeten said the real question now is if this is just a precursor to a larger quake.

“You never know what is the earthquake, what is a pre-earthquake, what is an earthquake happening after the main earthquake, you just have to see,” he said. “One slip along the rock fault, when one happens, it makes other areas around there more tense also and they start to slip and you slip again and slip again.”

But, he added, it would be unlikely for a larger quake to follow this one. In the Northeast, it’s more common for one large quake to be followed by smaller aftershocks, rather than a mounting series of tremors.

Social media reacts to the earthquake

Material from USA TODAY and the Providence Journal was used in this report.