LINCOLN, NEB - Last week, a 4.8 magnitude earthquake shook the metro area of New York City, leaving many wondering, if it can happen in one of the biggest cities in America, can it happen anywhere?

In thinking about Nebraska, News Channel Nebraska spoke with Cara Burberry, Associate Professor of Structural Geology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, to find out where, how, and when earthquakes may occur in the Cornhusker state.

“They occur at a rate of one or two a year in Nebraska, but they’re often so small, people don’t even feel them,” Burberry said.

While they may be infrequent, Burberry says they can happen in Nebraska. With many not reaching beyond four on the Richter scale, many earthquakes are self-reported to the United States Geological Survey by video taken on a phone.

Burberry also notes that fault lines in the central plains are billions of years old, with Nebraska’s youngest fault line aged at about 300-million years, located in Nemaha County in the states southeast corner. That makes the southeast region one of the most likely areas for earthquakes to occur.

“That’s where earthquakes may happen in that part of the state,” Burberry said. “These faults are just a bit younger, but they’re so far buried and were so far from anything that may stress those faults,  where as in somewhere like California, where they’re active… meaning they’r being stressed on a regular basis.

The most recent significant Nebraska quake occurred in the central region in December, when a 4.2-magnitude quake shook the Guide Rock area. Before that, a 5.1-magnitude shaking near the Nebraska-South Dakota border in 1964 topped the charts.

According to Burberry, Nebraska earthquakes generally wouldn’t cause much damage, but you may hear and see things before you’d feel them.

“What we normally get in the amount of shaking in Nebraska is pictures on the walls may be shaking or if it’s “really bad” it may fall off the wall,” Burberry said. “That’s the kind of damage we could expect, but it’s often that low rumble that may alert people something happened, be it at a distance or if you didn’t feel it all together, because the shaking is so very very subtle.”