What the New Jersey earthquake tells us about the fault system beneath the Northeast WSB-TV Channel 2 [Video]

Friday morning’s earthquake, an event more commonly associated with California, was the first many Northeasterners had ever felt.

The temblor, which measured 4.8 on the Richter scale, was considered a shallow earthquake by the U.S. Geological Survey, meaning that it occurred at a depth of zero to 70 kilometers below ground. The USGS reported Friday morning that there was a 38% chance of an aftershock measuring magnitude 3.0 or more over the next week, and approximately eight hours later, one measuring 4.0 was recorded.

The energy released by an earthquake is weakened the greater the distance from where it occurs, so while the New Jersey earthquake occurred at a depth of 5 kilometers, the shaking it produced would have been even less if it had emanated from a deeper level.

But Scott Brandenberg, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, told Yahoo News that Friday’s earthquake is probably not indicative that longer-term earthquake …