The Aug. 23 earthquake, registering 5.8 at its epicenter in central Virginia, was the largest one felt in Delaware since 1886 when a magnitude 6.6-7.3 quake hit Charleston, S.C., according to geologist Stefanie Baxter, a research associate at the Delaware Geological Survey, a Delaware state agency based at the University of Delaware.
Baxter was having lunch at a restaurant on Main Street in Newark, Del., when the tables started shaking and the lights began to sway.
“Did you feel that?” Baxter said, and immediately headed back to the office.
The Delaware Geological Survey’s three seismographs recorded the quake; their data has been provided digitally to Lamont-Doherty Observatory at Columbia University, which will do regional analyses of the event.
Forty-five minutes after the quake, 2.8-magnitude aftershocks occurred, Baxter said, but were likely too small to be noticed in this area.
Baxter said