Second Earthquake Swarm In A Week Hits Salton Sea

Another swarm of earthquakes hit the Salton Sea

 Strange Sounds

A swarm of earthquakes hit the Salton Sea Friday night, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The strongest temblor was initially a magnitude-4.6, but downgraded to 4.3. Meanhwile, the series is still ongoing with a M3.2 earthquake and tens of smaller ones hitting in the same spot…

This is the second swarm of earthquakes to hit in a week, with the first happening last weekend about 6 miles west of Calipatria. The biggest quake recorded in that swarmed measured at a magnitude-5.3.

“It’s basically a continuation of the swarm and it picked up a little earlier this month near Calipatria, California,” said USGS Geophysicist, Jana Pursley.

“I felt the earthquake last night. I was pretty startled. I was in my room watching TV, and the bed starts shaking and my bed’s against the wall and the wall made a noise,” said Indio resident, Jhovany Atayde. “I have a Pit Bull that started barking really loud.”

Within the past 30 hours the USGS has reported more than 140 earthquakes with a magnitude-2.5 or larger. Within the past 24 hours of Saturday evening, that number reached more than 25 temblors. And you can add dozens more for Sunday… The swarm has not become quiet at all!

“When you go down in magnitude this could technically be considered an aftershock or related to the initial one. The 4.3 from yesterday will have its own series of aftershocks, but they should be smaller with, perhaps based on aftershock predictions, you might have 10-15 percent chance of something equal in size or bigger,” said Pursley.

Both swarms hit the Brawley Seismic Zone between the San Andreas and Imperial faults.

On Friday night seismologist Dr. Lucy Jones tweeted out, “The Brawley Seismic Zone has started up again tonight, slightly north of last Saturday’s events, as though the fault extended a bit to the north. Looking back, a similar extended swarm happened in 1978. Like I said last week, they continue until they stop.”

Dr. Lucy went onto say that the swarm was closer to the San Andreas fault, but was “still not in triggering range.”

The zone likely ruptures in a magnitude-6.0 quake every 30 to 40 years or so, according to the Southern California Earthquake Data Center.