Jonathan Nyquist, chair of the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Temple's College of Science and Technology, says that earthquakes do happen here in the Philadelphia area occasionally, but it's unlikely today's quake will lead to a stronger event: "Little quakes occur on the East Coast all the time, but mostly they're ones that you're not going to feel unless you’re extremely close to the epicenter — and even then it's probably just a little shake. Big ones like this occur probably every 40-50 years."