San Ramon, earthquake
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A swarm of at least six earthquakes reaching up to magnitude 2.9 rattled San Ramon near San Francisco, the U.S. Geological Survey reports. The other quakes in the Saturday, Dec. 13, swarm ranged from magnitude 1.3 to 2.3, according to the USGS.
On Monday morning, around 30 minor earthquakes erupted in a swarm near the Geysers geothermal field south of Clear Lake. The day before, seven quakes rattled Sonoma County, including a 4.0 quake. The recent uptick isn't out of the ordinary, according to U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Susan Hough.
California's seismic risk is increasing with supershear earthquakes, which are faster and more destructive than typical earthquakes.
Major quakes in Japan and Alaska along with a spate of smaller earthquakes in California this fall make folks ask, is the Big One near?
The ShakeAlert system that warns about imminent shaking arriving from earthquakes sent a false alarm across California on Thursday morning for a magnitude 5.9 temblor that did not happen.
The federal government and earthquake experts blamed a technical glitch for the alert that sent warnings hundreds of miles away last week.
Residents in Nevada woke up to a shocking 5.9 magnitude earthquake alert, but after the panic settled, the whole thing turned out to be a fake quake alert sent by USGS.
The San Jacinto Fault, considered part of the San Andreas Fault system, has a 5% chance of magnitude 6.7 or larger earthquakes. The line begins at Cajun Pass and runs southeast through San Bernardino, Riverside County and Imperial County. Meanwhile, the Elsinore Fault, part of the same system, has a 3.8% chance of earthquakes of that size.
A minor, 3.1-magnitude earthquake struck in Southern California on Thursday, according to the United States Geological Survey. The temblor happened at 10:27 a.m. Pacific time about 8 miles northwest of Fillmore, Calif., data from the agency shows.
With earthquakes bouncing around the Pacific "Ring of Fire" some tremors have been going on in recent days up and down California.
A shake alert went out over the U.S. Geological Survey's early warning system on Dec. 4, warning that a 5.9 earthquake near Carson City in western Nevada could produce heavy shaking in the region. But moments later, the survey announced the alert, which was sent to people as far west as San Francisco, was a false alarm.