Earthquake swarm in southern California

slo town

slo town

Joined
Mar 3, 2011
Messages
4,429
Location
The Willow Creek District AVA
It’s been shaking in Grapevine/Lamont/Mettler where I-5 and 99 intersect. First was a 5.2 at 21:09 last night. Latest aftershock was at 8:31 this morning. We're about about 125 miles northwest a few miles from the coast and haven't felt a thing.

Edit: I just read there are no "previously mapped faults" in the area where this occurred.

Scott

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CA EM risk is very real, but at the same time, between the building standards and the amount of frame construction we have out here, it isn't top of mind for me.

Quite frankly, I am surprised that folks in the mountain region (esp. UT) are not more concerned.
 
The Critic said:
CA EM risk is very real, but at the same time, between the building standards and the amount of frame construction we have out here, it isn't top of mind for me.

Quite frankly, I am surprised that folks in the mountain region (esp. UT) are not more concerned.
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Or the Puget Sound area in WA.

At any rate, I'm not worried about it, living in a single story wood framed house. But I was worried about it when I was 30 floors up in a San Francisco high-rise during the 1989 Loma Prieta quake. All of us thought we were going to die, our thoughts being "Wait for it.....wait for it....." Let me tell you it's quite a head rush thinking you may have just seconds left before being crushed by concrete and steel.

Scott
 
I went to bed early and was watching Youtube (Dave's Auto) and got the warning. I thought to myself "what? no way!" then it hit. It felt like a long rolling quake that lasted maybe 10-15 seconds.

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bdcardinal said:
I went to bed early and was watching Youtube (Dave's Auto) and got the warning. I thought to myself "what? no way!" then it hit. It felt like a long rolling quake that lasted maybe 10-15 seconds.

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Sue got that warning too. What did we do? We just sat there and continued watching the Olympics. In hindsight that warning is something that shouldn't be ignored. I suppose it depends on where you are or what you're doing - like being under a car that's on jack stands.

Scott
 
Chris142 said:
I am 113 miles from it. Did not feel it.Only reason we knew about it was the alert came to our phones. A 5.2 is pretty small anyway
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True, but the thing is you never know how big the quake will be until it's over. The Great Alaskan Earthquake in 1964 probably started with a gentle rumble or two before turning into a 9.1.

Scott
 
Here is a map showing the faults in the area of the earthquake swarm which is still continuing. There appear to be many thrust faults in the area. What is interesting is that most of the recent southern California earthquakes have occurred in these thrust faults. Thrust faults are mapped by petroleum engineers not usually the USGS. After the Big Bear/Landers twin quakes and the Northridge quakes the USGS started to look at these thrust faults really for the first time. Thrust faults are where petroleum engineers look for oil because it is the fault that traps the oil and a reservoir is formed. This area also has oil reservoirs and there are many oil wells located in this area. There are 4 major oil fields, billion barrel oil fields in Kern County. With eartquakes such as this, it can be possible for the surface to shift enough to break the wellbore and shut in the well.
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Some people say the quakes are caused by oil drilling. Look it up on Google Earth. The continents move, earth quakes happen. Plate tectonics is really interesting
 
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wpod said:
Some people say the quakes are caused by oil drilling. Look it up on Google Earth
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Called Fracking when they drill and leave behind water to fill the void. Not the full answer, just the summary - but we have been seeing earthquakes in Texas due to fracking for natural gas and such. Very controversial topic.
 
Hydraulic fracking uses some water to create perforations in the rock strata around a well bore. Water is mixed with sand (propant) and a number of other substances to crack and then fill in the cracks with the propant to allow oil to flow through. While water is used, it generally comes out again with the oil as it passes through the propant. The perforations can also be made with explosives and then pumped full of water/sand/etc to hold the cracks open. this process can definitely cause small earthquakes to happen. Same thing happens near Grande Prairie and Peace River here in Alberta. Fracking operation happen in Grande Prairie and there are a number of SAGD steam injection operations around Peace River.

https://ags.aer.ca/research-initiatives/mapping-seismic-hazard
https://ags.aer.ca/research-initiatives/induced-earthquakes

Bakersfield area is a hotbed of oil production for California.
 
Fracking is the process of pumping downhole, the wellbore, a liquid, primarily produced water (brine) with a thickening agent to carry sand at very high pressures. Usually the thickening agent and sand are very pure so as not to contaminate the wellbore. This mixture is pumped under very high pressures sufficient to break the rock in the oil producing zone, fracturing it. The fractures are then kept open by the sand when the pressure is released. The oil then can flow into the well bore to be either pumped, or if there is sufficient pressure to flow to the surface.
 
Fracking quakes got so bad here in Arkansastan that tyey shut down all drilling for a period of time, and banned wastewater disposal wells.
 
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