WORCESTER, Mass. - In Worcester, a Holy Cross professor said while she didn't feel Friday’s 4.8 magnitude earthquake in New Jersey, many of her students and colleagues did.

Sara Mitchell is an associate professor of geosciences.

She said it's not unusual for people in Massachusetts to feel this quake because of the bedrock on the East Coast.

"It means the seismic waves can travel more efficiently through these rocks that are not as broken up as they are out west and so that means that seismic waves can travel further essentially, you can feel them from earthquakes that happen farther away,” said Mitchell. “An earthquake that big in in California, you would not have been able to feel it this far away, but here in the northeast we have these nice solid bold rocks, and those waves can travel further, just further essentially."

Mitchell said most earthquakes happen at plate tectonic boundaries. These are places where the earths tectonic plates are sliding against or under each other. She said that's not the case in the northeast because we're in the middle of a tectonic plate. Mitchell said the East Coast can still get earthquakes because there are always some stresses in the earth's crust.