November 30, 2010
By Katy Gurley
East Hampton Press

An underwater earthquake with a magnitude of 3.9 on the Richter scale was reported Tuesday morning, at 10:46 a.m., 79 miles south-southeast of Southampton, a seismologist from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, New York, confirmed.

“It was widely felt with some reports coming in from Bergen County, New Jersey,” said Dr. Arthur Lerner-Lam, associate director in charge of seismology at the observatory. “It was a small earthquake but large for this area.” The earthquake also was felt in the New York Metropolitan area, he said.

As of 1 p.m. Tuesday, Dr. Lerner-Lam said there had been no aftershocks from the earthquake, which occurred in a spot about 4 miles below the ocean surface.

The quake was felt in East Hampton by Jenn Robinson, who lives on Whooping Hollow Road.

“All of a sudden, everything started to shake and I could feel it come from one end of the house to the other underneath me. It was actually rolling through the house,” she said. She was feeding her 11-week-old baby on the couch when the earthquake hit, She put the child down in a seat and went to check the furnace, “I thought it was going to blow up or something,” she said, “but then I realized that the feeling of an earthquake was unmistakeable.”

The building that houses the East Hampton Press on Railroad Avenue in East Hampton also shook.

Earthquakes are not unheard of in the Long Island area, with five reported in the last 20 years, he said. The most recent one, in August 2009, had a magnitude of 2.4. The largest one in that time frame was a 4.7 quake in 1992.

Southampton Town Police in Bridgehampton reported two calls from citizens who reported feeling the earthquake. East Hampton police said they received one call from someone who was inquiring about the earthquake.

Southampton Town Police reported two calls from people in Sagaponack and Hampton Bays, who reported feeling the earthquake; Southampton Village Police said they did not receive any calls.

Patrick Wilson, an information specialist from the U.S. Geological Survey, said the service had received reports from Southampton, Water Mill, Eastport, Westhampton and Westhampton Beach and from virtually all of the states in the Northeast, and Mid-Atlantic States Virginia and West Virginia.

http://www.27east.com/news/article.cfm/Other/314579/Earthquake-Reported-Tuesday-Morning-Offshore-Near-East-End

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