Still no word on what rattled South Jersey earlier this week
There is still no official word on what rumbled South Jersey on Tuesday, but an official at the Joint Base said it wasn't them and the New Jersey Air National Guard unit in Egg Harbor said they weren’t responsible either.
A spokesperson for the Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst said he did not know what caused the shaking and rumbling and did not feel anything there. No activity on the base or from its cargo or refueling planes in the air would have caused the disturbance, he said.
Neither the NJ Air National Guard's F-16 fighter jets nor visiting T-38s from Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Virginia were airborne at the time of the disturbance, the 177th Fighter Wing Public Affairs Office said in an email. The jets did take off yesterday, but after 2 p.m., the email said.
As of 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday, the United States Geological Survey earthquake map did not show any signs of seismic activity.
A spokesperson from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection echoed the U.S.G.S. and added that the Delaware Geological Survey also did not have evidence that an earthquake occurred Tuesday.
Reports of a "loud boom or shaking sound" in parts of southern New Jersey were neither seismic activity nor of "meteorological origin," the National Weather Service of Philadelphia-Mount Holly tweeted Tuesday afternoon.
The rumbling and sound occurred around 1:24 p.m., according to unconfirmed reports submitted to the website Volcano Discovery.
A USA Today Network journalist in Longport, Atlantic County reported feeling two waves of subtle shaking around 1 p.m. Each time, his front door rattled for five to 10 seconds as if were being buffeted by high winds and the house rumbled briefly. The two waves were spaced out by several minutes.
The disturbance could be felt as far north as Monmouth and Ocean counties and as far south as Cape May, according to social media reports.
We've heard the many reports of a loud boom or shaking sound in portions of southern New Jersey this afternoon. USGS does not indicate any seismic activity, and as far as we are aware, it was not of meteorological origin. #NJwx pic.twitter.com/05PrvsvqFZ
— NWS Mount Holly (@NWS_MountHolly) February 8, 2022
This story will be updated.
Aedy Miller covers education and the economy for the Burlington County Times, Courier-Post, and The Daily Journal. They are a multimedia journalist from Central Jersey and a recent graduate of the George Washington University.
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This article originally appeared on Cherry Hill Courier-Post: Was there an Earthquake in NJ? Loud boom in South Jersey
