Earthquake: 5.3 quake shakes Los Angeles, Southern California

[MindMover]

Last edited Sat Mar 29, 2014, 01:55 PM - Edit history (5)

Source: LATIMES

A shallow magnitude 5.3 earthquake was reported Friday evening one mile from La Habra, California, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The temblor occurred at 9:09 p.m. Pacific time at a depth of 0.6 miles.

Updated at 9:16 p.m.

The quake was felt across a large swath of Southern California. There were no immediate reports of damage. The Los Angeles Fire Department said it is going into emergency mode and looking for signs of damage or injuries.

According to the USGS, the epicenter was one mile from Brea, California, three miles from Rowland Heights, California, three miles from Fullerton, California and 337 miles from Phoenix, Arizona.

In the past ten days, there has been one earthquake magnitude 3.0 and greater centered nearby.

This information comes from the USGS Earthquake Notification Service and this post was created by an algorithm written by the author

updated ; http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/earthquake-53-quake-strikes-near-la-habra-california-k2al0i,0,5399191.story#axzz2xKDu5ac7



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Read more: http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/earthquake-53-quake-strikes-near-la-habra-california-k2al0i,0,5399191.story#axzz2xK2plnyk

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http://bigstory.ap.org/article/magnitude-51-earthquake-shakes-los-angeles

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2014/03/29/us/ap-us-california-earthquake.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimes&_r=0

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/29/us-earthquake-california-idUSBREA2S03H20140329?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter&dlvrit=992637

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/ci15481673#summary

https://twitter.com/SkyAlertMx/status/449769875636879360/photo/1

https://twitter.com/ObservingSpace/status/449772073506729984/photo/1

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/5-1-earthquake-shakes-los-angeles-area-usgs-says-n66721

http://www.10news.com/news/magnitude-54-quake-hits-southeast-of-la

and of course CNN is wondering : http://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/28/opinion/kuchins-obama-putin/index.html?eref=edition&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=cnni

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/29/earthquake-strikes-near-los-angeles?CMP=twt_fd

[Iwillnevergiveup]

1. Oh man, I felt that one

near S. Pasadena. Pretty long jolt. 2 cats and one dog completely oblivious.

[bananas]

4. Felt it in San Diego

Local seismometer graphs: http://eqinfo.ucsd.edu/

[PasadenaTrudy]

26. I'm in So. Pas

Pretty strong here!

[bananas]

2. USGS event page

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/ci15481673

[Iliyah]

3. Orange County

but felt in South Bay as well - a roller.

[Xolodno]

5. Palmdale area...whooo hooo!!!!!!

[ripcord]

6. I'm in Covina

About 10 miles away, my first 2nd story earthquake.

[calimary]

9. Welcome to DU, ripcord!

Glad you're here! Things really are shakin' around here lately! We were on the Westside and were jolted pretty noticeably during the most recent one that was centered in Encino. But this one - not noticeable at all. You're okay, I hope.

[ripcord]

10. I'm fine

Bourbon helps.

[kestrel91316]

30. Oh that's nothing, lol. I lived just a couple miles from the Northridge epicenter

and was in the loft bedroom of my 3rd floor condo when that sucker hit.

That was definitely an E-ticket ride.

[calimary]

7. Didn't feel a thing this time!

The anchor on Channel 9, Kent Shocknek, said it could be a foreshock of something bigger -

He was a morning anchor on the NBC O&O here in L.A. during the 1994 quake. They called him Kent Aftershocknek.

[SunSeeker]

15. LOL. I remember him ducking below his anchor desk.

But he wasn't the only one who shit his pants.

[calimary]

34. I was still working at the time. He took a lot of crap from others in the business, locally, for

doing that. Tons of teasing and snarky remarks. The only difference between him and the rest of those shitting their pants that morning was - he did it live on TV.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

8. I don't think it was much of anything

I live in Huntington Beach, not far from La Habra where the quake was centered. It was a gentle rolling that lasted about 8 or 9 seconds. I remember the big quake of 1971 known as the Sylmar earthquake, where I think more than 30 people died and 40,000 were evacuated because of the severe damage to a dam. That one occurred early in the morning and was extremely frightening. That one felt like the roof of the old house I was in at the time was going to fall down on my bed. That one seemed to go on and on forever. The entire house was creaking loudly, twisted back and forth and you could hear the loud rumbling coming up from the ground. This was was nowhere even remotely scary like that one, although you always wonder if it will get worse until it stops shaking.

[antiquie]

50. Minor household damage

in Buena Park (rocked hard enough to bust the upstairs toilet) and here in Yorba Linda we have pictures and knickknacks down in most rooms. It was a little bit bigger than not much of anything. Add in the rest of the swarm...

[winstars]

11. Felt it pretty good here in Redondo Beach, news just said was actually 5.1...

I was in West Hollywood in 1994 for the Northridge Earthquake, now that was ROCK AND ROLL...

[Trillo]

12. Fracking?

Near any fracked wells?

[PasadenaTrudy]

25. No

On a thrust fault. Same one as Whittier Narrows quake in '87.

[Trillo]

41. Perhaps. Using Google Earth, 33.929N 117.922W, it's just houses at the epicenter.

Here's a short quote from an article:

"In other states, injection wells located 7.5 miles from a fault have been shown to induce seismic activity, points out Andrew Grinberg, the oil and gas project manager for Clean Water Action.

Thus, if that is accurate information, it seems a 7.5 radius or 15 mile diameter should be drawn around the area. That is a much larger area, with the epicenter in the center of the circle, and incorporates a lot of undeveloped, and what looks like hilly, land. It's also worth noting there are plenty of industry advocates who assert there is zero danger of increased magnitude quakes from fracking, and of course there are opposing advocates. So, one expert cancels another: I'd be curious to know if there are or were any fracked wells in that particular circular area!

From the reading I've done, it has been asserted that fracking increases the magnitude of quakes. I do agree that California has always had a lot of quakes (I was born in and lived in SoCal my entire 50+ years, and I felt this particular quake some 50 miles away.)

Just to make the issue even more complicated, very long distances between earthquakes and linked fracking have been reported:

The study said there was a direct connection between a 9.0 earthquake in Japan in 2011 and a swarm of smaller quakes in a West Texas oil field that used fracking. A 4.1 quake near fracking wells in Prague, Oklahoma, was linked to an 8.8 quake in Chile in 2010. The Chile quake also shook the ground in Trinidad, Colorado, near natural gas fracking sites.

The earthquake threat doesn’t come from the hydraulic fracturing itself, but from the disposal of waste water and chemicals used in the fracking. It is these injection wells that have been linked to earthquakes.

A second study, also just published in Science, states that, “Microearthquakes (that is, those with magnitudes below 2) are routinely produced as part of the hydraulic fracturing (or ‘fracking’) process used to stimulate the production of oil, but the process as currently practiced appears to pose a low risk of inducing destructive earthquakes.”

However, the long-distance effect from major earthquakes could change the whole scientific and political dynamic surrounding fracking.

[marions ghost]

47. California is threatened by fracking

"Fracking has been around for decades but is coming under increased scrutiny as California ponders tapping The Monterey Shale, a repository of oil that could top 15.3 billion barrels and may represent 60% of all shale oil in the country. It is pretty much unregulated in the state, while the energy industry fights rules that would force them to identify where they are fracking, give notice where they intend to frack and disclose what toxic chemicals they are pumping into the ground with millions of gallons of pressurized water.

Critics say fracking has been linked to groundwater contamination, air pollution, releases of methane gas, micro-earthquakes and sink holes. A 2011 report from the Committee on Energy and Commerce in the House of Representatives identified 29 known or suspected carcinogens used in fracking between 2005 and 2009."

(from your article)

[PasadenaTrudy]

53. Faults run under houses and bldgs n/t

[kestrel91316]

31. We don't need fracking to get earthquakes.

They happen all on their own without the assistance of man.

[Trillo]

46. Uh huh. Wikipedia has a more interesting entry....

Pretty sure its within a few miles distance, but I could be wrong. It looks like its just north of Brea, in the hills without housing tracts, within a few or couple of miles from the epicenter, and that most of the field is within 8 miles radius:


Next quote from Brea-Olinda Oil Field.

Some enhanced recovery technologies have been used since the 1960s, particularly in the Miocene and Pliocene producing horizons. Steamflooding of the Pliocene commenced in 1973, a method useful for decreasing viscosity of heavy oil and encouraging it to flow to pumping wells. The Miocene pool has been subject to cyclic steam, steamflooding, waterflooding, and fireflooding.[8]

Unocal operated most of the field until March 1996, at which time it sold off all of its California assets to Nuevo Energy.[14] Nuevo operated the field for seven years, finally selling its portion of the field in 2003 for $59 million to BlackSand Partners, L.P., prior to themselves being acquired by Plains Exploration & Production.[15] At that time the field was producing 2,269 barrels per day. BlackSand ran operations on the field for a little over three years, and in 2006 Linn Energy bought it from BlackSand for $291 million.[16] In February 2007 Aera Energy LLC transferred its 654 wells on the field to Linn Energy, leaving Linn as the largest operator on the field.[17] As of 2009 Linn remained the principal operator with 361 active wells, followed by BreitBurn with 73 wells, Cooper & Brain with 21, and Thompson Energy Resources, LLC, with 18.[2]

It is interesting to me that the word "fracking" does not occur, yet it is unclear what techniques may have been used by the latest operators in that second paragraph of the excerpt.

According to Physicians for Social Responsibility:

Right now, we know at least two large oil fields are fracked: the Brea-Olinda field near the city of Whittier, and the Inglewood field in the city of Los Angeles.

[kestrel91316]

56. Earthquakes predate fracking in this area by millions, if not billions, of years.

Yesterday's quake was on the same fault that gave us the Whittier quake prior to Northridge.

I agree that fracking is a horrible thing, but if you are going to blame these SoCal quakes on fracking and not plate tectonics, you're just delusional.

[PasadenaTrudy]

58. Thank you

for saying what I've been too tired to articulate!

[Trillo]

60. "... if you are going to blame these SoCal quakes on fracking and not plate tectonics ..."

Last edited Sun Mar 30, 2014, 03:56 AM - Edit history (1)

I'm sure I didn't say that. You might want to scroll up and carefully reread my posts.

[tishaLA]

13. It woke me up, but I didn't really feel it

if you know what I mean. I only knew afterwords that it was the earthquake that inspired the end of my nap.

Anyhow, I'm kinda worried about these recent quakes, especially because both of them have been shallow. I have a sense of foreboding.

[kestrel91316]

32. Me, too. In the few years leading up to Northridge we had a number of these

moderate quakes in the area, after years of nothing.

Same pattern seems to be happening now. I am quite nervous.

[Beaverhausen]

14. Burbank here. Felt it. But the wine I'm drinking

Just made it fun.

[SunSeeker]

16. Knocked down a few pictures and a clock broke after it fell over.

And a glass of water tipped over and got our bills wet. My husband and son were driving and didn't feel it at all. But I really felt it since I was home, on the 2nd floor of our house here in Seal Beach (just south of Long Beach). It lasted at least 20 seconds. Still feeling little 2.0 aftershocks.

[Nanjing to Seoul]

20. any tremor less than 3.5 can't be felt by humans.

[Beaverhausen]

27. That's not true

I've felt quakes in the 2.0s. It just depends where you are and what you are doing.

[SunSeeker]

28. I just checked, and the aftershocks I felt were 3.4 and 3.6..

They're saying this quake was very shallow, i.e. close to the surface, so people felt it more.

Anyway, I'm human and I definitely felt the 3.4.

[Nanjing to Seoul]

37. within .1 of 3.5. Which is what I said.

[SunSeeker]

38. I've felt ones in the 2.0's as well. What you said is wrong.

Humans can definitely feel 2.0's

How big does it need to be for a person to feel it?

What an earthquake feels like depends on many factors: the magnitude, your distance from the hypocenter (considering the depth of the quake), the type of soil or rock you are on, the building you are in or if you are outdoors & what you are doing at the time. Under ideal conditions, you are lying or sitting still in an upper floor, right on top of a shallow earthquake, you might feel a 1.8 if you were paying attention. Usually, however, it takes at least a magnitude of 2.0 for multiple people to notice a quake & recognize it as a quake. A 4.0 usually gets a lot of public attention if it happens under a populated area.

http://www.scsn.org/faq.html#measuring

I can't believe you're arguing with me over this.





 

[Nanjing to Seoul]

39. Can you feel an earthquake with the magnitude of 2.0?

No. Worldwide, over 8,000 earthquakes of magnitude 2.0 or less occur every day, and nobody ever feels them. Earthquakes can start to be felt over 3.0, but even then they are very weak and rarely cause damage. To put it in perspective, all the earthquakes that cause major damage are usually in the 7.0-9.0 range. These quakes are millions of times stronger than a 1.9 quake would be.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richter_magnitude_scale#Richter_magnitudes

I hate using wikipedia, but I'm going to get an abscess dressing changed and have no desire to continue this.

You might feel it, but more than likely, if you were not paying attention, you would not.

[bananas]

40. Quakes below 2.0 can be felt by people

Thanks for linking to wikipedia, it says you're wrong:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richter_magnitude_scale#Richter_magnitudes

Less than 2.0 Micro I Microearthquakes, not felt, or felt rarely by sensitive people.

2.0–2.9 Minor I to II Felt slightly by some people.

3.0–3.9 II to IV Often felt by people, but very rarely causes damage.

[SunSeeker]

42. Yes. I can. Your Wikipedia cite does not contradict that.

Of course most people don't feel small earthquakes. My husband and son did not even feel the 5.1 because they were in a car. But this is shallow fault. I am on the 2nd floor and am in a flat, liquifaction prone area by the beach. All that makes smaller tremors feel much stronger.

Liquifaction is why a beach town like Santa Monica had such terrible damage from the Northridge quake even though the epicenter was miles away in the San Fernando Valley.

You shouldn't assume you know what people feel, especially when you're not here.

I hope your abscess heals soon.

[kestrel91316]

33. False. Several years ago there was a Northridge aftershock of just 2.0

that happened directly underneath my little rental house, lol. I thought it was The Big One for about 3 seconds. But a mile away people barely felt it.

[Nanjing to Seoul]

36. every university level geology book i've read says opposite, but i am am wrong, i am wrong.

[kestrel91316]

55. There is no arguing with actual reality and physical experience.

I am reading the same things online. They say people "do not normally" feel quakes under 3.0. That is completely different from saying that we CANNOT. If you are up and moving around you probably won't feel a little one. That same little quake WILL be felt by someone sitting quietly at rest.

[Jack for Sanders]

17. three miles from Fullerton, California and 337 miles from Phoenix, Arizona.

337 miles from Phoenix, Arizona?

What an odd thing to include in the report.

Unless they know something they're not telling us.

Should I be buying ocean front property in west Phoenix or something?

Just askin' for a friend.

[Nanjing to Seoul]

19. No. George Strait's prediction won't happen yet.

And Arizona will get a tremor dogs will feel, but not people. 2.0 maybe.

[catchnrelease]

23. I said the same thing to my husband

When I read that, I said "Is that the most important landmark they can come up with? Phoenix??"

Felt like we were on a boat here in Long Beach.

[Nanjing to Seoul]

18. the pressure along the conservative San Andreas plate boundary has been building for years

It hasn't moved much. It's beginning to slip. The big one might be on the way. All that has to happen is the joint holding the energy back to break or give away and LA is looking at a minimum 7.0 - 7.5 slip fault, shallow focus Earthquake.

For someone that teaches plate tectonics in his geography class, this is a fascinating time in California.

[barbtries]

21. i'm in NC

and my FB just lit up. everyone back home felt it.

[Scairp]

22. Western S. Bernardino Co.

We felt the one before that and then the larger one, which is very unusual. Rattled our windows, dogs barking. Still, not that big of a deal, IMO.

[darkangel218]

24. I hate earthquakes.

We don't really have them here in FL, but Ive been through many back home. They SUCK

[silverweb]

29. My son's in LA.

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]Westwood, to be exact, and he didn't feel anything. Just lucky, I guess.

[SoapBox]

35. Uhhh...missed it.

South Bay of LA but we missed it...don't know how.

Next time.

[nilram]

43. CNN's wondering if it was caused by a UFO...

[TeamPooka]

44. It was a long wavy one. Felt it strong here in the SFV.

[Cali_Democrat]

45. I was driving at the time right near LAX

Didn't feel a thing.

[meti57b]

48. My cats think it's something I caused, and they stay away from me for hours.

[BeyondGeography]

51. Lol...cat logic

Sometimes it just doesn't work. But how to explain?

[DeSwiss]

49. Yeah, there was a thread about earthquake warnings......

...but it didn't cut the mustard though.......

- K&R

[broadcaster75201]

52. Felt it pretty big in West Hollywood. nt

NT

[jakeXT]

54. More than 100 aftershocks rattle Calif. after strong quake

LOS ANGELES — More than 100 aftershocks continued to rattle Southern California on Saturday after a stronger earthquake the night before displaced dozens of residents.

Among the strongest aftershocks, the U.S. Geological Survey reported a magnitude-3.4 struck at 9:02 a.m. PT Saturday, centered close to La Habra near Los Angeles, which took the brunt of the larger quake Friday night.

The strong earthquake was felt widely across the region shortly after 9 p.m. PT Friday. The USGS said the epicenter was 1 mile from Brea, located about 20 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles, and 3 miles from Rowland Heights and Fullerton. The main quake was preceded by two foreshocks registering at magnitudes 3.6 and 2.1, scientists said.

USGS seismologist Lucy Jones at CalTech in Pasadena told the Los Angeles Times that the 5.1 quake has a 5% chance of being a foreshock of an even larger quake.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/03/29/quake-calif-la-orange/7045563/

[tishaLA]

57. ....and another one

about 10 minutes ago. I cant find it on the USGS map, though, so I have no idea of its intensity or epicenter

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

59. K&R.