For decades, residents of the southwestern state have been concerned a huge earthquake, known as the Big One, could devastate the south-western US state. Now, 10 mini quakes have struck along the San Andreas fault, leaving locals worried.
The earthquakes hit Monterey County, just south of San Jose, with the largest registering at 4.6 on the Richter scale – strong enough to be felt 90 miles away in San Francisco – at 11.31 AM local time on Monday 13 November. However, there were no reports of injuries or damages to buildings.
Still, the fear remains that a huge quake could strike and researchers warn that a small flurry of tremors could be a sign that a larger one is warming up – but experts can not be sure, leaving locals to hope for the best. John Bellini, a geophysicist at the US Geological Survey (USGS) said:
“We can't predict or forecast earthquakes. Sometimes before a large earthquake you'll have a foreshock or two, but we don't know they're foreshocks until the big one happens.”
The quake struck at 11.31 AM local time on Monday 13 November.
California sits on top of the potentially deadly San Andreas Fault, a chasm between two massive plates of the Earth's crust that extends hundreds of miles across California. Also, beneath California, the Pacific and North American tectonic plates are moving northward – although the former is moving quicker leading to a buildup of tension.
Monterey County is about 90 miles south of San Francisco
A powerful earthquake in 1857 released some of this pressure, but a lot more needs to be released, and Robert Graves, a research geophysicist at USGS, suggests the Big One could be overdue by ten years.
He told Raw Story:
“The San Andreas fault in southern California last had a major quake in 1857 (magnitude 7.9). Studies that have dated previous major offsets along the fault trace show that there have been about 10 major quakes over the past 1,000-2,000 years… the average time between these quakes is about 100-150 years.”