Saturday, March 29, 2014

Earthquake Fears Grip Los Angeles

By Douglas V. Gibbs

Is "The Big One" coming?  Or are these tremblers releasing pressure that will protect us from the next big one?

The 5.1 quake that centered near Brea and La Habra wasn't the end of it, it seems.  Now, a 4.1 magnitude earthquake slammed the area around Rowland Heights, real close to Friday's larger rumbler.  The 4.1 quake is considered to be an aftershock, one of more than a hundred of them.

After the latest earthquake, more than 70 people have been displaced from their homes, 54 of them from an apartment complex where 20 units were red-tagged after the building suffered a cracked foundation.

Experts suggest that these quakes could lead to something bigger.

The "Big One" has been expected during my entire life here in California.  Every time a good-sized earthquake strikes, the hysteria begins, but one of these days, the people panicking may finally be right.

According to John Dvorak, a geophysicist who now works at a astronomical observatory in Hawaii, earthquakes come in storms, and California has not had a storm of quakes in a long time.  He warns that a break from earthquakes can just be the calm before the earthquake storm.

Most of the motion between the Pacific and North American plates occurs along coastal California. In the last hundred years, there has been only one significant earthquake along those plates: the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, also known as the World Series earthquake.

But during the previous hundred years before that, there were five significant earthquakes along the California coast, in 1812, 1838, 1857, 1868, and 1906.

Large earthquakes are the major means by which seismic energy gets released after building up between the two tectonic plates. And so one or more large earthquakes are in California’s future. It is a matter of when.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Earthquake: 4.1 quake strikes near Rowland Heights; Felt over wide area - Los Angeles Times

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