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| -Short Attention Span Theater- |
| Another substantial quake, not an aftershock, rattles Central California |
| 2004-09-29 |
| September 29th, 2004 ARVIN — Central California was rattled Wednesday by substantial earthquakes on two different faults that caused no major damage or injuries, but the temblors were close enough in time and location to leave scientists wondering if they were linked. A magnitude-5.0 earthquake rattled Kern County on Wednesday, just hours after a pair of apparently unrelated aftershocks from a 6.0-quake Tuesday jolted another part of Central California. The Kern County temblor triggered a rockslide on a state highway, but there were no reports of damage or injury and the road was quickly cleared. The earthquake struck at 3:54 p.m., 17 miles northeast of Arvin, said Anthony Guarino, a seismic analyst for the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. The quake was felt as far north as Sacramento and as far south as Redlands, Guarino said. It also was felt in Las Vegas. It was centered about 150 miles southeast of Parkfield in Monterey County, where a magnitude-6.0 quake scared residents on Tuesday. "This is actually a new earthquake, this is not an aftershock," Guarino said. There have been more than 500 aftershocks to the Parkfield quake. Two of the biggest, 5.0 and 4.5, shook the region around 10 a.m. Wednesday. The largest aftershock rattled window blinds in San Jose. The Parkfield and Arvin quakes would be examined by scientists who for the past decade have been looking at links between separate quakes in California that occur far apart, Guarino said. "The likelihood is that both this earthquake and yesterday's earthquake will have their own aftershocks," said Susan Hough, a U.S. Geological Survey seismologist. "Those sequences will continue to die down, and there's maybe a one in 20 chance that one of these earthquakes will be a foreshock to something bigger." For example, the deadly 6.7-magnitude temblor that hit the Northridge area of Los Angeles in 1994 was preceded by an earthquake sequence in the Salton Sea area, Guarino said. Arvin, a rural community of about 14,000 is 79 miles north of Los Angeles and lies at the eastern end of the White Wolf fault, which ruptured in a magnitude-7.5 quake in 1952. Bakersfield police spokeswoman Mary DeGeare said dispatchers received about a dozen calls from people reporting the earthquake. "It was obvious it was an earthquake. It was more of a jolt than the rolling sensation they felt yesterday," she said. Aftershocks to the Parkfield quake, which erupted on the San Andreas fault, continued Wednesday morning with temblors measuring magnitude 5.0 and 4.5, which made them among the strongest of more than 500 aftershocks roiling the area. The Parkfield earthquake and its aftershocks have not caused any major damage or injuries, but they could be a boon to researchers who hope intense scrutiny of the state's earthquake capital may help predict future temblors. The aftershocks were centered five miles northwest of Parkfield at 10:10 a.m. and 10:12 a.m. Since the 6.0 quake at 10:15 a.m. Tuesday, there have been six aftershocks of 4.0 or greater. Harry Miller, who grows 170 acres of wine grapes alongside the San Andreas fault, was checking on the cases of wine that were tipped over in Tuesday's earthquake, trying to assess his loss, when aftershocks hit Wednesday. His home is near Parkfield, about 150 yards from the San Andreas fault, but Miller said the building, and other buildings on the farm, seem to have withstood the shaking. "It doesn't really appear any buildings are really damaged that much," he said. "It just takes time to sort through these things." Parkfield, population 37, is subject to small, unfelt shocks all the time. Temblors are so prevalent that the USGS named its long-term earthquake research project the Parkfield Experiment. A major quake in the same area killed two people last year. Dozens of sensors — seismometers, strainmeters, creepmeters — dot the remote, sparsely populated region. Drilling is underway there to go 1.4 miles down into the bowels of the 800-mile-long fault that forms the boundary between immense geological plates that grind and produce ground movement. "It's going to be a lot of data that we can look at," said Andy Snyder of the U.S. Geological Survey. "It ensures a good payoff." |
| Posted by:Mark Espinola |
| #1 I didn't feel a darned thing again and this time it was only about 35 to 40 miles due east. That is the fault that wiped out Bakersfield the year of my birth. I'd ratehr have this than tornados and hurricanes. |
| Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom 2004-09-30 6:37:35 AM |