Earthquake swarm rocks New Year's Eve in California town
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Brawley, California
Story highlights
- California town hit by more than 100 minor earthquakes
- Earthquake swarms not uncommon for the area, experts say
(CNN)Dozens
of earthquakes helped bring in the New Year around Brawley, California,
but they are more of a curiosity than a concern, experts tell CNN.
Caltech
seismologist Lucy Jones said earthquake "swarms" aren't unexpected
around Brawley -- there also was a swarm in 2012 -- because the
fault-riddled region called the Brawley Seismic Zone lies between the
large San Andreas Fault and the Imperial Fault.
More
than 100 earthquakes have hit the region this weekend, but most are too
weak, under 2.5 magnitude, to be noticed by people, said Donyelle
Davis, spokeswoman for the United States Geological Survey.
Weak quakes can trigger a bigger, more dangerous quake, but Brawley, a city of about 25,000 people near the Mexican border, is too far from the San Andreas Fault for that to be much of a risk, Davis said.
"This
area may have produced the most earthquakes in the entire state of
California, but they are small," Jones said. "If they happened a mile
away we would be concerned, but these quakes are about 30 miles from
the San Andreas Fault."
Since
Saturday at least 24 quakes have been 2.5 to 3.9 magnitude, according
to the Geological Survey. Earthquakes of 3.9 magnitude or less generally
create little or no damage.
They
are common in California. As of noon Sunday, the state had had 191
earthquakes in the past 24 hours and 7,707 in the past 365 days, with
the largest measuring 6.5 in Ferndale, according to the website
earthquaketracker.com.
Catastrophic earthquakes seem to strike along the southern San Andreas Fault about once every 150 years,
the Geological Survey said, citing studies examining the past 1,400
years. The last time an enormous temblor on the fault struck Southern
California was in 1857.
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