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Salton Sea is Swarming with Earthquake DataPublished on 2009-03-27
![]() Broadband Seismic Data Collection Center (ANZA), Institute of Geophysics & Planetary Physics, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego
Image of Google map showing earthquake clusters. Click here to open map.
It's one of the great mysteries of Southern California seismology: Every couple of years, the remote desert area around the Salton Sea is shaken by swarms of small to moderate earthquakes that often last several days.
The swarms returned this week, with the area recording more than 200 temblors since Saturday -- including several that were felt Wednesday. But this time, scientists had sophisticated instruments in the ground to record the activity, helping them to better understand the swarms and how they can affect seismic risk elsewhere. Scientists have noticed that the quakes appear to have a pattern, moving southeast as the days progress. But a bigger question remains: Can the quakes trigger larger -- and potentially more destructive -- quakes along the San Andreas fault, which terminates at the shore of the Salton Sea? A creep meter on the San Andreas just north of the Salton Sea area, operated by the University of Colorado, found a 0.002-inch slip on the fault right after the largest earthquake in the swarm -- a magnitude 4.8 on Tuesday. "If you look at the statistics, they say the odds of something bigger happening is on the order of 1%," said Susan Hough of the U.S. Geological Survey in Pasadena. "It raises your blood pressure as a seismologist, but we're trying to read the tea leaves." By Jia-Rui Chong |
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