Page 156 - Faults News Today

There. moved the fault further. we have the seven. look at the cluster to the northwest. we think right now we arent getting many of the after shocks recording yet. the system is strung out. and so, pretty sure that is a continuous after shock zone. that is the extent of the fault. just the length of the fault a magnitude 7.1. we would expect its probably at least about 25 miles long. that would imply probably the whole length from where the 6.4 happened to the after shocks are. >> china lake up...

Faults. >> reporter: right, but if you have an earthquake fault of 7.1 magnitude, 150 miles away from a major metropolitan area and use of or damage, youre in big trouble. >> was there damage in the los angeles area? >> reporter: my point is we got calls for it and there is a report of a power outage somewhere. the region has to sustain a 7.1 150 miles away. >> absolutely and for the most part, the region has. i think the incident is probably somewhat isolated. i would be very surprised if there...

>> reporter: i have a question about the conjugate system here, the fact that these two are conjoined, does that add any energy or is it just happenstance that these two are connected? >> as far as we can tell, the better picture we get as we put in more the more often we see multiple faults. we think they probably -- most of them are like this. >> the way we would describe that as the earthquakes were a lot simpler when we had less data. [laughter] >> we are back in the 5% zone since this hit, ...

They can present quite a hazard. its not always known faults that are a possibility of producing earthquakes like this. so i dont think ive had an exact fault line that has been identified yet. i think cal tech is probably still working on trying to identify the fault here. just imagine this took place in the small town of richquest. population about 20,000. if it happened 120 miles to the west, where los angeles is located, what would this have meant? >> caller: it would have been a different s...

Called a fore shock. >> right. >> to yesterdays larger event. we didnt know it at the time, so how do we know that this most recent quake isnt a fore shock for something even bigger? >> you truly do not. and even after the 6.4, we said theres only a 5% chance of a bigger quake. well, guess what happened? you know, sometimes long shots win. but 3% chance right now that it would be higher than 7.1 for the next big quake if there would be one. so a 97% chance that it doesnt happen. but thats not ze...

Defined. the most likely to trigger it is at the same fault. as you go away with distance, it becomes much less likely. >> how far is that from the san andreas. >> quite a ways. >> its not even on that figure. its over 100 miles to the san andreas from this location. >> the gar lock fault is another long fault closer. if we were going to be triggering something really big, it might be a source for that. when landers happened near the san andreas, it didnt happen. but it was a possibility. a low ...

This is from ridgecrest, thats a house on fire that nbcs molly hunter told us that mpb got out safely. what we just learned from that mpbs conference is every earthquaking is an opportunity to learn what works, what doesnt as far as building structures, the warning systems, the cause of the quakes themselves, the fault lines and all of that. basically what theyre saying is theres a converging of different faults that are now spreading. and we reto expect about 5% chance of another actual earthqu...

The san andreas. and the sort of geological discussion is that because its going to eventually take over from the san andreas or is that some other sort of millions of years, not on our time scale. but still, we sometimes call this a complex plate boundary. two-thirds of the motion happens on the san andrea. the rest gets smeared out through other faults. this is the 10% to 20% smeared out to the east. >> you said the wasatch. do we see these kind of events in utah. >> yeah. the farther east you...

Underground from the navy may have triggered it. >> weve set off pretty large nuclear blasts without setting off a earthquake. the largest is a magnitude 2. >> the epicenter for this one is ten miles beneath the surface. >> is there anything about this earthquake thats surprising at all to you? >> the size. >> no, in a way, as dr. jones was explaining after the 6.4, there was a possibility of having a larger event. and sure enough, we did. and you know, the mechanics of these two faults, the con...

Kind of surrounded by faults. we have the san andreas fault t the west of us and then i was unaware of this fault was in th china lake weapon station out there so we are kind of sandwiched in between. i have a friend that is approximately 45 miles to the east of us, and he said it was so violent that his power went out and he is probably 30-40 miles west of the epicenter do. >> what about you? did you injure neighbors have power tonight? >> es. we are in a major city, so we are 110 miles north o...