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posted by chromas on Saturday July 06 2019, @04:27AM   Printer-friendly
from the shake-rattle-and-roll dept.

Update: Second, larger quake shakes Southern California, also near Ridgecrest

A magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck Southern California Friday night, the second major temblor in less than two days and one that rocked buildings across Southern California, adding more jitters to an already nervous region.

The quake was centered near Ridgecrest, the location of the July 4th 6.2 magnitude temblor that was the largest in nearly 20 years.

There were reports of Friday night's quake causing some fires and other damage in Ridgecrest, said emergency officials on the scene.

[...] When Thursday's quake hit, scientists had warned that it could lead to an even larger quake. Ridgecrest has been rattled by more than 17 magnitude 4 quakes and at least 1,200 aftershocks since Thursday. A magnitude 5.4 aftershock occurred earlier this morning— strong enough to awaken some residents of Los Angeles about 125 miles away.

Strongest Earthquake in Years Rattles Southern California; Damage Reported:

The largest earthquake in two decades rattled Southern California on Thursday morning, shaking communities from Las Vegas to Long Beach and ending a quiet period in the state's seismic history.

Striking at 10:33 a.m., the magnitude 6.4 temblor was centered about 125 miles northeast of Los Angeles in the remote Searles Valley area near where Inyo, San Bernardino and Kern counties meet. It was felt as far away as Ensenada and Mexicali in Mexico, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Reno and Chico, Calif.

Authorities said there were no immediate reports of deaths, serious injuries or major infrastructure damage, though emergency responders were still inspecting areas around the city of Ridgecrest.

Patients at Ridgecrest Regional Hospital were evacuated "out of an abundance of caution," hospital Chief Executive James Suver said. About 20 patients were transferred to other facilities while seismic engineers inspected broken pipes in the facility. "For true emergencies, we will stabilize them and then get them to the right level of care," he said.

Ridgecrest, a community of about 29,000 known to many skiers as a pit stop on the way to Mammoth, was inundated with offers of help, from neighboring towns, congressional leaders such as Rep. Kevin McCarthy and Sen. Kamala Harris and even the White House, Mayor Peggy Breeden said.

[...] The quake, estimated to have been felt by some 15 million people, was the largest with an epicenter in Southern California since the magnitude 7.1 Hector Mine quake struck the Mojave Desert in 1999, about 35 miles north of Twentynine Palms Marine Corps base. The last earthquake felt as widely as Thursday's was the magnitude 7.2 earthquake on Easter Sunday 2010 that had an epicenter across the border in Baja California.

Before Thursday, it had been almost five years since the state experienced an earthquake of magnitude 6 or stronger. Experts had said the period of calm was sure to end, and when it did it would likely bring destruction.

[...] The rocking in Searles Valley began with two foreshocks: an initial quake of magnitude 4 at 10:02 a.m. Seven minutes later, a 2.5 temblor struck. About 24 minutes later, the mainshock began seven miles underground, lasting five seconds.

[...] By midafternoon, more than 200 aftershocks had been recorded, including 10 of magnitude 4 or greater.

Caltech seismologist Lucy Jones, California's foremost earthquake expert, said that aftershocks will continue to rumble through Kern County, and there is a small chance that the quake was a "foreshock" of an even greater temblor to come.

[...] The faults that moved Thursday were nowhere near California's most feared fault — they are about 100 miles northeast of the San Andreas, said Caltech seismologist Egill Hauksson.


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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Saturday July 06 2019, @04:32AM (8 children)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Saturday July 06 2019, @04:32AM (#863752) Journal

    Thanks. Saw 7.1 mag in Google News and came back to bump it cause why not.

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Reziac on Saturday July 06 2019, @05:40AM

    by Reziac (2489) on Saturday July 06 2019, @05:40AM (#863764) Homepage

    That's our Soylent -- always on the spot! :)

    The 7.1 had just hit the USGS chart when I was here earlier... since then a bunch more minor quakes.

    Something interesting: before the 7.1, the pattern on the map was strongly boomerang-shaped. Since then, the 'hollow' area has filled in. Wild guess that the former is the stress pattern, and the latter is just shit rolling downhill.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 06 2019, @06:21AM (6 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 06 2019, @06:21AM (#863771)

    Japan and Alaska have quakes that get to 9, which is about 900 times as much power. (log base 32 system)

    • (Score: 2) by Rupert Pupnick on Saturday July 06 2019, @11:36AM (2 children)

      by Rupert Pupnick (7277) on Saturday July 06 2019, @11:36AM (#863788) Journal

      It’s a log base 10 system.

      • (Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Saturday July 06 2019, @10:15PM (1 child)

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday July 06 2019, @10:15PM (#863952) Journal
        AC was referring to the energy (not power) release which is roughly 10^1.5 ~32 increase with each order of magnitude increase in moment. So each 1 unit step is roughly an order of magnitude increase in shaking and 30 times increase in energy released.
        • (Score: 2) by Rupert Pupnick on Sunday July 07 2019, @04:16PM

          by Rupert Pupnick (7277) on Sunday July 07 2019, @04:16PM (#864150) Journal

          There are indeed many magnitude scales of which I was not aware https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seismic_magnitude_scales [wikipedia.org]. Would be helpful if press accounts would specify, but I guess that’s expecting too much.

          An amplitude scale like Richter is easy to understand because it’s a local measurement. When you start to talk about total energy, then you need to consider not only the size of the geographical area, but also the time duration of the event, right? How does the factor of 10^1.5 account for this? It is in the link, but no explanation is offered.

          Anyone have any insight?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 06 2019, @06:10PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 06 2019, @06:10PM (#863884)

      A weaker earthquake could cause billions of dollars of damage in California, but only thousands in Alaska.

    • (Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday July 06 2019, @09:27PM (1 child)

      by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Saturday July 06 2019, @09:27PM (#863943) Homepage

      Was just about to say this, magnitude-7 is pussy shit. I was 15 miles away from the epicenter of the magnitude 9 Mexicali quake that happened on Easter Sunday years ago, now that was fucking scary. You had water leaping out of the canals and spilling into the streets, water leaping out of swimming pools, every single fucking car alarm going off, everything inside the houses all over the floor and fucking destroyed, and even outside it felt like standing on a platform that was floating back and forth on lava.

      And I made the mistake of getting high right before the quake hit, too. The aftershocks, some of them significant in themselves, persisted for another week, and while sleeping I jumped up and prepared to run every time an aftershock hit, which was at least once per hour.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 06 2019, @10:05PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 06 2019, @10:05PM (#863951)

        I was 80 km away from epicenter of a 8.8 magnitude earthquake, barely could keep standing as i was bouncing against a wall a door and a wardrobe like a pinball marble. The floor was waving like a blanket shaked up and down and randomly sideways.