Follow the link to a much larger scale Geologic Map of New York City . NYC is primarily composed of sediments that were metamorphosed during the Taconic and Acadian orogenies roughly 500 - 400 million years ago. It is in these hard rocks that the city skyscrapers have their foundations. Rocks within the glaciers scraped and scratched the bedrock of Central Park producing long linear striations and grooves.
Long Island is composed of rubble that the glacier left behind as it melted.
The crust and part of the mantle of the Earth together form rigid plates called tectonic plates. Generally, earthquakes are located at the boundaries between plates where they collide, or grind past each other, or spread apart. New York City lies within the North American plate and the closest plate boundary is thousands of miles away in the middle of the Atlantic. Despite its intraplate location, the city has an unusually high number of earthquakes. However, it still has fewer earthquakes than plate boundaries and most of these tremors are quite small and cannot be felt.