Stony Brook University geology professor Daniel Davis points to a...

Stony Brook University geology professor Daniel Davis points to a seismogram that depicts the 3.9-magnitude earthquake that was felt on parts of Long Island. (Nov. 30, 2010) Credit: Gregory A. Shemitz

  Hundreds of millions of years ago - eons before Long Island even existed - this part of the world routinely seized with earthquakes, volcanoes spewed lava, and the violent collision of tectonic plates thrust up mountains taller than the Himalayas.

"To be able to live here at that time, there would have been countless earthquakes," said William Holt, a geophysicist at Stony Brook University. "A truly big one once a century."

Today? Not so much.

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