Tracking earthquakes in the New York area

NEW YORK (FOX 5 NEWS) - The devastation caused by earthquakes is evident all across the world. They've destroyed homes and taken countless lives. But could something like this happen in our area?

Professor James Gaherty is the associate director for seismology, geology, and tectonophysics at Columbia University's Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory. He says huge earthquakes are not possible but smaller ones are.

Six of this year's area low-magnitude earthquakes occurred in a swath of northern New Jersey. He says while it may seem like we've had more earthquakes recently, it is because those quakes are happening in places where you can feel them.

The most significant fault line in our area is and the longest is the Ramapo fault line. It measures 185 miles. It spans through parts of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Most earthquakes occur in the Pacific Ocean area. Gaherty says while it is almost impossible to predict an earthquake, there is one way man has known to cause them: the deep injection process that is part of fracking.