Three dozen aftershocks after NJ earthquake, and more coming

✅ Over three dozen aftershocks have occurred since Friday's 4.8 earthquake

✅ What causes a fault?

✅ Boil water order still in effect after earthquake-caused water main break

There have been at least 37 aftershocks since Friday’s magnitude 4.8 earthquake with an epicenter in Hunterdon County, according to the US Geological Survey.

Friday morning's earthquake was felt as far north as Maine, as far south as Virginia and as far west as Pennsylvania. Most of the aftershocks have been under magnitude 2.0. The most recent was at 7:31 p.m. Sunday evening. The biggest was around 6 p.m. Friday, which was originally measured at 4.0 before being downgraded to a 3.8.

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Ken Miller, a Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences professor at Rutgers-New Brunswick, was with a team near the epicenter of Friday's aftershock.

"It was still relatively minor compared to the 4.8 but you could feel it," Miller told New Jersey 101.5.

Miller along with most seismologists believe the aftershocks will continue for possibly weeks as the fault where the earthquake occurred settles. Recent heavy rains could be a contributing factor to the aftershocks.

"The fault usually will slip because of some combination of events, just the stress building up and being what we would call stochastic. It just happens. Or perhaps because there was an excessive amount of rain at the fault. So once it slipped a little bit, it will continue to slip until it settles in again," Miller said, adding that most have been unnoticeable.

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Miller said the earthquake happened along the Flemington Fault, not the Ramapo Fault, as has been widely reported.

A Morris County MUA water main broke on Pleasant Hill Road in Randolph. The main has been repaired but a boil water advisory remains in effect as of Monday morning pending the results of lab tests. The initial break shot a stream of water into the air.

Bedminster Township Public School, a pre-K – grade 8 school, reported a two-hour delayed opening Monday morning due to “residual effects” of the earthquake.

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