Another quake swarm rattles Salton Sea
About 35 small earthquakes rattled the southern Salton Sea area, one month after an earthquake “swarm” led officials to issue an alert warning of an increased possibility for a major earthquake event.
The quakes, which began at 2:43 a.m., were all relatively mild, but closely follow a swarm of around 200 quakes that struck the region in late September.
That swarm — which included two magnitude-4.3 temblors — led the California Office of Emergency Services to issue an earthquake advisory, warning of a slight increase in the possibility of a major earthquake (magnitude-7.0 or higher) to be triggered by the swarm.
The California Earthquake Prediction Evaluation Council said in September that the probability of a major quake occurring along the San Andreas Fault was increased by .03 to 1 percent due to the swarm.
Experts say these small tremors aren’t very worrisome, but they have the potential to be be the last bit of force needed to awaken a sleeping giant. The southern end of the San Andres fault has not had a major earthquake in more than 325 years. “It is stuck, and at some point the strain is going to become great enough that it unlocks and potentially have a very large earthquake, There’s no guarantee that it is going to be a large earthquake but it could be,” said Dr. Nancy Moll, a geology professor with College of the Desert.
The majority of the latest quakes occurred within about an hour of each other, but two additional temblors were recorded by the USGS at 10:17 a.m. and 10:26 a.m., with magnitudes of 3.0 and 2.9, respectively. The largest was a magnitude-3.5 recorded at 3:41 a.m. near Niland in Imperial County.
