"It's exciting for me," said Professor Laura Guertin.
READ MORE: 4.8 magnitude earthquake hits NJ, shaking felt in Philadelphia area
4.8 magnitude earthquake hits NJ, shaking felt across Northeast including Philadelphia area
Guertin teaches Earth sciences and was on a Zoom call when the earthquake hit. At first, she didn't think it was actually an earthquake.
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"But then the table was shaking a little too much, and I heard things rattling in the house and it was going on way too long. So I immediately switched over and said, 'Oh no, I know what this is, it was an earthquake,'" said Guertin.
She pulled up the seismograph image of the 4.8 earthquake that was recorded on the highly sensitive equipment buried deep in the ground on campus. As she looked at the data she also noticed that the same area of Whitehouse Station, NJ had a 2.2 earthquake preceding the recent one on March 14.
Viewer videos capture the moment a 4.8 magnitude earthquake shook the region
"I don't think that this was on anyone's radar that we were getting set up for a main event," Guertin said.
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How the earthquake was felt depends on where a person was when it happened. While it measured a 4.8 at the epicenter, it didn't feel that way in Philadelphia. It felt more like a 3.5.
"We're not feeling the same energy release as someone who might be close to the event where the earthquake occurred," she said.
No matter what you felt, the USGS wants to know. They have a link on their website to let them know if you felt it so they can better understand earthquakes.