Posted on 07/10/2019 6:34:41 PM PDT by robowombat
California Earthquakes Leave Naval Station China Lake ‘Not Mission Capable’
By: Gidget Fuentes July 9, 2019 11:24 AM
California State Route 178 SW of Trona, following the M7.1 earthquake. Road is now closed for repairs.
SAN DIEGO – Two major earthquakes that struck Southern California late last week opened fault lines on Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake and prompted officials to evacuate residents. Since Saturday, the Navy testing installation has been declared “not mission capable until further notice.”
As of late Monday, the Navy’s key research-and-development site for major aviation and weapons systems testing and evaluation remained off-limits to anyone but mission-essential personnel, as crews worked to inspect facilities at the sprawling installation complex.
China Lake, which covers 1.2 million acres of the Mojave desert, felt the brunt of the significant tremors, from the magnitude 6.4 earthquake that struck at the morning of July 4 to the scores of aftershocks and then a magnitude 7.1 earthquake on Friday evening.
U.S. Geological Survey experts identified the epicenters of the two largest tremors and countless others as occurring within the Navy installation. Navy personnel and California National Guard air crews assisted geologists in surveying the impacts of the tremors, which cracked paved roads, opened gashes across the desert area and shifted railroad tracks.
The weapons station, as well as nearby towns of Ridgecrest and Trona, saw scattered damage from the quakes but no deaths or major destruction.
As of Monday evening, China Lake officials had reported few details about effects to the weapons station and offered scant information in public updates posted on the weapons station’s official Facebook page. The installation’s spokesperson hadn’t responded to a USNI News query as of Monday night.
Basic services such as water and power have been restored in most areas of the base, China Lake officials wrote in a Monday post on Facebook. The weapons station’s Navy Exchange planned to reopen Tuesday, so mission-essential personnel could get supplies and other items. “The barbershop will also open, but patrons will need to be escorted inside the barbershop,” officials wrote in another post.
But the earthquakes damaged the installation’s All-Faith Chapel, which was established in 1944. “The NAWSCL Religious Ministries services are cancelled due to structural damage to the building. All personnel are encouraged to seek services out in town,” officials posted on Facebook.
USGS Image
“The safety of our workforce is our priority. All are reminded to maintain high situational awareness,” installation officials wrote in a Facebook posting Monday afternoon
Navy Region Southwest’s commander, Rear Adm. Bette Bolivar, “authorized the evacuation of non-essential personnel to safe haven, Naval Base Ventura County,” on Friday, a region spokesman, Brian O’Rourke, told USNI News in a statement Monday afternoon. “This order remains in effect until further notice.”
It’s unclear how many personnel and families opted to evacuate to Ventura County or other “safe haven” military installations, as the earthquakes happened over an extended holiday weekend for many military personnel.
“A diverse array of infrastructure and services exists on base and are spread throughout the installation’s approximate 1.2 million acres,” O’Rourke said. “Damage and structural assessment is a lengthy process after two major earthquakes and associated aftershocks.”
“Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake has completed assessments for 10 percent of approximately 1,200 buildings within the installation’s perimeter as of noon Monday,” he continued. The installation’s “top priorities are safety of personnel, security of capabilities, reconstitution of infrastructure, and the systematic progression to full mission capability. The installation remains at Mission Essential Personnel (MEP) status,” he added.
Personnel looking for additional information can contact the Family Information Call Center at (844) 523-2025.
“Lincoln Housing crews and an emergency response team will be entering homes to assess for damages, and begin water extraction as needed” starting Sunday, Lincoln Military Housing-China Lake officials posted on the community’s official Facebook page.
China Lake File Photo. NASA Photo
According to NAWS’s website, the weapons station has 2,132 buildings and facilities, 329 miles of paved roads and 1,801 miles of unpaved roads, as well as Armitage Field, the main air station, all valued at some $3 billion. Its 19,600 square miles of restricted and controlled airspace supports integrated testing and training for aircraft and weapons systems. About 620 active duty military, 4,166 civilian employees and 1,734 contractors work at the weapons station, which include several key tenants: Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division; Air Test and Evaluation Squadrons 31 and 9; Naval Facilities Engineering Command Southwest China Lake Detachment; Marine Aviation Detachment; and several Navy explosive ordnance disposal detachments.
“Some essential facilities on the installation that service the city of Ridgecrest and surrounding area remain a top priority,” O’Rourke added.
The weapons station, about 150 miles north of Los Angeles, stretches northeast from Ridgecrest, a high-desert desert town of 28,000. The installation includes several significant cultural or archaeological areas, including the Coso Rocks, a national historic landmark.
The magnitude of Thursday’s earthquake is the largest to strike California since Oct. 16, 1999, when the Hector Mine quake, measuring magnitude 7.1, jolted Marines and other Southern Californians awake at 2:46 a.m. from the epicenter in the northwest portion of the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center at Twentynine Palms.
How do we know that there are not minute by minute tests going on there?
Was the Moon landing faked?
I have been to China Lake to see what they call the “Coso Rocks” in the article. Actually they are the best preserved ancient Indian petroglyphs in north America.
https://www.latimes.com/travel/deals/la-tr-california-china-lake-petroglyph-tour-20161027-story.html
You are undoubtedly familiar with the area. I know a guy that lives in an underground house in Darwin. His father was a sculptor and he has several of his father’s works on his property. Some rugged individualists in that area.
The geologists are very frustrated as the evacuation of all non-mission critical personnel means there’s hardly anyone on base to escort them to find surface ruptures and conduct other scientific examinations of the earthquake area. Additionally, many radio types and frequencies are restricted as well, meaning the typical deployment of temporary monitors is not possible on most of the installation.
You are quite right, this entire area is a world apart from the Los Angeles basin 150 miles to the south. I found it interesting that the media focused on L.A. after the big quake last week. They know little to nothing about this area.
Where are the tin hats asserting that secret government experiments at China Lake caused the earthquakes?
Curious...
Lucy Jones shot down that theory in 2 seconds last week...
My youngest son worked at China Lake before being transferred to Fresno VA. He worked in water systems management with steam generation. There are geothermal power generation sites in the Coso volcanic field which is inside the northern part of the base. You have to have clearance to get in there. I inspected some concrete structures there years ago. It’s like going back in time with steam and mudpots everywhere. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was an eruption there at some point in the near future. I was reading a scientific report last night and the magma chamber is very close to the surface. A lot of these aftershocks are right in the field and very close to the surface. On another point my son was checking some wells and accidentally wandered into a sensitive weapons testing area. He was questioned by security for hours. So letting geologists wander around is not like Central Park.
How do we know that there are not minute by minute tests going on there?Why would you need to know?
Was the Moon landing faked?"It was only a paper moon, hanging over a cardboard sea"
Where are the tin hats asserting that secret government experiments at China Lake caused the earthquakes?You might be posting to one...Curious indeed.Curious...
I live in the south end of the San Joaquin Valley so have been paying attention to the quakes.
On the USGS quake page, you can watch the new ones populate the map and they go from one end of that Coso Junction - Little Lakes area to the other and back again. Back and forth over and over.
Something’s sloshing around down there.
Trump could be testing NORK tactical Nukes for all we know...
You got any intelligence to say otherwise?
Yeah. It sure seems like that 7.1 earthquake may have affected the Coso field. But then I’m not a geologists. The fact that there hasn’t been a large aftershock from this big quake yet is weird. The full moon is coming up soon. We’ll see.
Yep - moon landing(s) are all fake...the reflector that allows us to bounce lasers off it and verify it’s actual distance and the fact that it is creeping away doesn’t exist either.
Have you been to Lagomarsino? They are incredibly well preserved mostly because few people know about them.
Tactical nukes would not cause an earthquake nearly that large. Not even close.
Good to know, thanks.
I’ve never let off any tactical nukes, even on the Fourth.
Not yet. Plan to some day. About a three hour drive for me to get to the trail head. There is also a lot of petroglyphs within a short drive from my house.
I’m not sure where to start here... 1-2mm per year? Yeah, pretty much inconsequential. Try the 4 feet that mountains north of Northridge gained during that quake (averages about 22-34mm per year.)
The last ‘lava dome’ in the Coso field was approximately 10,000 years ago - no exact date as no one can gain funding to do the actual dating since it’s so not a concern.
The Coso fields is a hot spot, much more geologically stable than say, oh, Clearlake & the Geisers. Much more likely for volcanic activity much further south near the Salton Sea, however.
As for China Lake, my brother was stationed there for most of his land duties during his Navy career before retirement, been all over it (with permission.)
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