There is a thread in IMHO about surviving natural disasters and it reminded me of the earthquake felt in The Bronx in the early '80’s. I surfed around the 'net and found a few sites. Here’s the latest NYC earthquake: http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/weekly/aa011801b.htm
This site http://mceer.buffalo.edu/infoService/faqs/eqlist.asp says no one really know why there should be earthquakes in NY. Would anyone here like to hazard a guess?
Whoops! That’s not the site that says they can’t say for certain why NY has earthquakes, it’s this one: http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/geofaq.html
I don’t know either, but it’s not my fault!
I suggest buy some “no fault” insurance.
If you folks and us out here have enough of them, we can snuggle up and we’ll have no more ‘flyover’ states. 
New York (Manhattan) is just a big ol’ granite rock, right? No reason it can’t move, given enough of a push.
Peace,
mangeorge
Biggirl,
I am also interested in this, and I had a little time to poke around on search engines this morning. This article is helpful: Why Does the Earth Quake in New England?
I also found a Neal Real Time Earthquake List. There’s been no recent activity in your area as of this post— I’m just putting up this link because I think it’s interesting.
Enjoy,
Kris
I happened to be at the Science Museum and Observatory at Dolbeau, Quebec, soon after a large (Mag. 6.0) earthquake had hit just north from there (early 90’s). The folks there said that the causes of these ‘no fault’ earthquakes were still not understood.
–sublight.
Youse gots a problem wit’ da oith shakin’ in Noo Yawk, pal?
Maybe me an’ my boys’ll go t’ your place 'n shake IT up.
I thought it was all that thumpin’ bass…
Aside from that, my dad enjoys telling me about how there’s a fault line running, oh, under my building (at least that’s what he’d like me to believe).
Unfortunately, he may be right! From this link:
The article isn’t recent but it’s the first one I found that referred to what I like to think of as My Dad’s Fault. Isn’t everything?
Thanks guys. I’m still reading the links provided by Tabithina and Rosebud. Now I’m puzzling over these “ancient faults”. A fault in the middle of a plate is a fault nontheless, no?
These faults were formed because Africa bumped into North America causing stress in the middle of the plate and then it ripped up a nice, big Atlantic Ocean sized hole when it moved away. (This is my layman’s understanding, please correct me if I’m wrong.) These cracks in the earth were formed by a completely different phenomenon than the plate faults-- but a crack in Earth’s crust is still a crack.
Another question, if I may. Why do the Northeastern quakes cause so little damage to property and to the earth itself? I would think our nice solid little hunk of bedrock may have something to do with this, but a mag 7 should do something besides rattle a few dishes around.
I hate when that happens. I thought I hit preview. It must have been the earth shaking that moved my mouse over submit instead.
Eh, biggurl, fuhgeddabatit.
Actually, the Quebec earthquake in '92 or '93 did make a lot of visible changes in the landscape. No building were damaged, however, simply because the area was so sparsely populated that there weren’t any buildings to damage. I think there may have been an injury or two due to falling trees, though.
–sublight.
[conspiracy whisper]
The word was passed around quietly, that every inhabitant of New Jersey would come out of their homes at 7:30 on that very morning, and, on the count of three, they all jumped up and down for two minutes. You read about the rest of the story
[/conspiracy whisper]
While it’s true that the most active earthquake zones are associated with the margins of tectonic plates, an earthquake can occur anytime portions of the earth move relative to each other and produce a shock wave. And there are lots of faults and fault zones whose movements are not directly related to tectonic plate movements.
Here’s an article, Surprise earthquake faults found in New York, that discusses the subject. That article stresses the incorporation of Landsat data, which is useful, but the interpretation of such relies on surface expression of faulting.
A very effective method of detecting and mapping subsurface faults (faults not seen at all on the surface) is through the use of reflection seismic data. Not much of that has been recorded in New York, although there is some current activity along a specific trend. That data is being recorded at the behest of energy companies and is expensive. Areas without percieved hydrocarbon potential are unlikely to be surveyed.
Intraplate earthquakes can be related to tectonic stress exerted on the plate and can occur when the stresses release along a zone of weakness; a fault zone that didn’t exist prior to the event can be the result.
I should add that the “no fault” earthquake scenario is addressed by the no-previously-observable-fault mechanism reported above.