Earthquake rattles homes across Morris County

A 2.3 magnitude earthquake struck Morris County Tuesday afternoon, shaking homes and producing a loud noise, as described by multiple residents on social media.

An interactive map on the US Geological Survey's website states the quake occurred at 5:14 p.m. with an epicenter near Circle Drive in Rockaway.

The fault that ruptured was a little over 3 miles below the earth's surface, according to the USGS. Thomas Pratt, a geophysicist with the survey's eastern region said with such a shallow event, the groundswell would spread widely, despite being weak.

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"These sorts of small earthquakes happen pretty regularly in the eastern U.S. We'll just have to wait to see if any more happen," Pratt said.

Due to regular thunderous blasts at nearby Picatinny Arsenal in Jefferson, many residents assumed the loud boom and resulting tremor was simply another weapons test.

One Twitter user with the handle @cdziuba said they immediately suspected the arsenal was to blame and described the effect as a "sharp jolt."

Smaller quakes in the eastern U.S. "often sound like sonic booms or cannon shots," Pratt said. "They have a lot of high frequencies that can really cause things to rattle."

About an hour and 15 minutes after the first earthquake, a second one struck the same area to the north, in the Lake Telemark community, with a 1.7 magnitude.

Morris Plains Police Chief Michael Koroski said his department received no reports of the incident nor calls for service and said there appeared to be no damage nor power outages due to the earthquake.

"I've been working in town for 20 years and we'd had earthquakes a couple times before, in the low 'ones,' " he said, referring to the magnitude of previous ruptures.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: NJ earthquake: Morris County homes rattled