Earthquakes in New Jersey: What is the cause?

National Seismic Hazard Model (2023). Map displays the likelihood of damaging earthquake in the United States over the next 100 year. Photo credit: Courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey. (https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/national-seismic-hazard-model-2023-chance-damaging-earthquake-shaking).

Hasbrouck Heights, NJ: Earthquakes continue to rock New Jersey at an alarming rate and with shocking severity. As of August 12, the Garden State has reportedly experienced 26 earthquakes. New Jersey’s biggest earthquake of 2025 occurred near Hasbrouck Heights late Saturday, August 2, with a magnitude of 3.0. 

The Hasbrouck Heights Police Department reported no structural damage or bodily injuries caused by the earthquake on August 2. The department wrote on Facebook that they received multiple reports of “what appeared to be a loud and sudden crashing noise.”

New Jersey is not known for experiencing so many earthquakes, nor has the state seen many earthquakes that resulted in significant damage. The Northeast States Emergency Consortium claimed that only 96 earthquakes were reportedly felt in New Jersey from 1738 to 2016. Only a single 5.5 magnitude earthquake in 1884 is known to have caused damage in New Jersey by toppling chimneys.

Lori Aramian-Murray, an Oradell resident, shared her surprise at the two earthquakes that she had felt in New Jersey while working from home over the summer of 2025.

“I was sitting in the same spot in my house working,” she said, “and the first time it happened, I thought it was construction on the street, and then realized very quickly that it was not. It was something different. And it was really pretty scary. And ironically, I was on a Zoom call with people from California, and when I explained what I was feeling there, they were the ones who told me it was an earthquake. It was just very unexpected. Not anything that I had really, I don’t think, really experienced…ever before.”

Rutgers University geologist Alexander Gates stated that, while 350 earthquakes shook New Jersey in the past 50 years, 212-220 earthquakes hit the state in 2024 alone. The worst earthquake to hit New Jersey that year occurred near Tewksbury, rocking the township with a magnitude of 4.8, the first earthquake of such magnitude in over 241 years.

“So all of a sudden, Northern New Jersey is becoming one, it has become one of the most active places in the United States for earthquakes, believe it or not,” Gates said in an interview. “So it was just a wild thing that it did that. This year is still pretty active. This is probably the second-highest year in the past 50 years, so we're still getting a lot of earthquakes now.”

The U.S. Geological Survey intensity map of New Jersey during the earthquake occurring on August 3, 2025 at 02:18:52 UTC. Photo credit: Courtesy of U.S. Geological Survey (https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us6000qxsb/dyfi/zip).

According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), damage does not typically occur during earthquakes unless the magnitude reaches “somewhere above 4 or 5.” As stated in New Jersey’s Hazard Mitigation Plan, earthquakes are most likely to occur in the northern part of New Jersey, but earthquakes with magnitudes of 2.5 or lower are usually not felt.

One may assume that the increase in earthquakes has had unnatural causes, such as fracking. 

That hasn’t been the case, particularly since fracking was banned in New Jersey in 2021.  There are fracking stations in nearby Pennsylvania, where earthquakes indirectly induced by fracking’s wastewater disposal wells have occurred. However, there are no reports of these tremors being felt in New Jersey.

Gates theorized that this recent rise in earthquakes centered in New Jersey is part of a natural cycle of increasing and decreasing tremors.

“We think that it might be just that there are just cycles in the Earth,” said Gates. “Whether there's some kind of internal tectonic cycle where the stresses build up at certain points and then release, or whether it's astronomical. Like we start [when] we're closer to the sun or closer to the moon at certain points or other planetary bodies. But something just makes them become more active at certain times. 

The Ramapo Fault Line has been cited as one of the causes of the earthquakes in New Jersey, particularly the one in Morris County on July 22, 2025. However, Gates claimed that the Fault line is now inactive and that earthquakes occur around it in what is now called the “Ramapo Seismic Zone.”

“I see there are [earthquakes] that go North-South, but most of the [Ramapo] fault goes about East-West,” said Gates. “And so, what typically happens with earthquakes around here is you'll get one bigger earthquake or maybe a small one first, and then a relatively large earthquake. And then over the next 12 months, you get a sequence of earthquakes. Maybe three. Maybe five. It just depends, and they all occur in a line.”

Gates also explained that, while New Jersey’s earthquakes are much smaller than those in California, they are far shallower. This means state residents can hear the earth shake much better, which can sound like an explosion to some.

“So you can actually hear the rocks break,” said Gates. “You can hear the fault move, which is very odd. So everybody reports these explosions…When an earthquake goes off, they report explosions to the police, and it's because they're so shallow that you can hear them. You could hear the earthquakes go.”

When asked about when this cycle of earthquakes in New Jersey could lessen, Dr. Oliver Boyd, a research geophysicist at the USGS, said it is impossible to tell. Though he argues that a serious earthquake would be very unlikely in New Jersey, he still encouraged residents to be prepared for such a situation.

“You have to remember to, when you start feeling the shaking to drop, cover your head, and stay protected…,” said Boyd. “You might drop underneath a sturdy table, and people work just to make sure that things that might fall don't hit you. But it's unlikely…it's going to be strong enough to do much damage.”

Considering the number of earthquakes in New Jersey in 2025 compared to the previous year, it seems that the cycle of earthquakes has begun to shift past its apex. While the number of earthquakes appears to have fallen, they have made state residents more aware of how often these tremors can occur and how they can manifest in New Jersey.