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Two people died, 12 were injured and dozens were displaced from their homes in the aftermath of a magnitude 6.4 earthquake that struck off the coast of Northern California and rattled the small towns of Humboldt County early Tuesday morning, officials said. Ferndale, Fortuna, Rio Dell and Scotia were among the towns that felt the most intense shaking. The two people who died were ages 72 and 82, and both had medical emergencies during or after the 2:34 a.m. temblor. They were unable to access timely medical treatment, officials said at a 2 p.m. news conference, according to ABC News...

It's called the Mission Creek strand and it runs from around Indio, through Desert Hot Springs and into the San Bernardino Mountains. "Higher slip rates on faults mean more risk," said Morgan Page, a geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey in Pasadena and one of the developers of the Uniform California Earthquake Rupture Forecast. Page was not associated with the recent study. "It means stress is accumulating faster on that fault and you would need basically either more earthquakes or larger earthquakes over centuries to relieve that stress." All of which means that this particular strand on the San Andreas...

The desert near the Salton Sea continue to tremble as a swarm of small earthquakes that started Wednesday continued into Thursday. The swarm slowed down Thursday, but at least four earthquakes of magnitude 3 or larger were recorded in the first seven hours of the day, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The swarm is taking place in the Brawley seismic zone, a predominantly extensional tectonic zone that connects the southern terminus of the San Andreas Fault with the Imperial Fault in Southern California. The area has seen swarms in the past in which they remain active for as many...

Rock-melting forces occurring much deeper in the Earth than previously understood appear to drive tremors along a notorious segment of California's San Andreas Fault, according to new USC research that helps explain how quakes happen. The study from the emergent field of earthquake physics looks at temblor mechanics from the bottom up, rather than from the top down, with a focus on underground rocks, friction and fluids. On the segment of the San Andreas Fault near Parkfield, Calif., underground excitations—beyond the depths where quakes are typically monitored—lead to instability that ruptures in a quake. The findings are significant because they...

A swarm of earthquakes beneath the Salton Sea began on August 10, 2020. The largest earthquake that has occurred, as of this release, is a magnitude 4.6 at 8:56 AM PDT on August 10. This earthquake and the associated swarm are located approximately 8 miles from the southern end of the San Andreas Fault. This area has also seen swarms in the past – most recently, in 2001, 2009, and 2016. Past swarms have remained active for 1 to 20 days, with an average duration of about a week. During this earthquake swarm, the probability of larger earthquakes in this...

I was living on the eastern US at the time, when this tragedy happened and I am sorry for the souls lost.

There has been anomalous activity on the San Andreas fault over the last 10 days, now we have a big preshocky cluster right on the Salton sea, 9 in the last hour, 2 over 4.0. Please be sure your water heaters are properly attached

The Cascadia and San Andreas Faults may be linked, with earthquakes on one triggering events in the other "with minimal or no separation in time," scientists have said. Chris Goldfinger and Joel Gutierrez, from Oregon State University, say their evidence showing a relationship between the two goes back almost 3,000 years. The controversial findings, which have not yet been published, will be presented at the American Geophysical Union fall meeting in San Francisco on Friday. The San Andreas Fault forms part of the tectonic boundary between the Pacific and North American Plate. It stretches about 750 miles along the east...

Provocative analysis of sea-floor cores suggests that quakes on the Cascadia fault off California can trigger tremors on the San Andreas. Two of North America’s most fearsome earthquake zones could be linked. A controversial study argues that at least eight times in the past 3,000 years, quakes made a one–two punch off the west coast of the United States. A quake hit the Cascadia fault off the coast of northern California, triggering a second quake on the San Andreas fault just to the south. In some cases, the delay between the quakes may have been decades long. The study suggests...

Thomas H. Jordan, director of the Southern California Earthquake Center, said Monday afternoon that the earthquake swarm about 150 miles southeast of Los Angeles has been “decaying away nicely. It’s been tailing off. “I would say the risk is declining,” Jordan said. Of swarm activity at the Salton Sea, “it really hasn’t been very active in the last couple of days. It’s been pretty quiet.”

Study finds that faults beneath the Salton Sea ruptured during Colorado River floods and may have triggered large earthquakes on the southern San Andreas FaultSouthern California's Salton Sea, once a large natural lake fed by the Colorado River, may play an important role in the earthquake cycle of the southern San Andreas Fault and may have triggered large earthquakes in the past. Researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the University of Nevada, Reno, discovered new faults in the Salton Sea near the southern end of the San Andreas Fault. By examining...

Nearly 50 years ago, a young Greg Smith celebrated July Fourth fishing, learning to water-ski and getting sunburned on a favorite beach at the Salton Sea. Today, Smith is an Imperial County businessman working to help resuscitate the dying desert sea that few dare to enter and on bad days can drive visitors far from shore with its smell. “We've gone through the hand-wringing,” Smith said. “Now is the time to do something.” That something could cost $8.9 billion over the next 75 years. Legislation to launch a comprehensive revitalization plan – one of the most ambitious in the nation's...

NILAND - A U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agent was found dead floating in seven feet of water in a canal near the city of Niland, east of Salton Sea, authorities announced today. Richard Goldstein, 37, a five-year veteran of the Border Patrol assigned to the El Centro Sector's Indio Station, was found floating in the Coachella Canal after agents reported him missing around 3:30 p.m., Border Patrol Agent David Kim said. Goldstein was discovered floating in the canal almost an hour after agents found his K-9 partner sitting alongside his vehicle, which was parked and idling along the Coachella...

The Riverside County Sheriff's Department, the Imperial County Sheriff's Department and the Border Patrol have confirmed that deputies have found a dead Border Patrol K-9 agent near the Salton Sea. Border Patrol agents responded to a call of a missing agent around 11 AM Friday morning and began searching the Coachella Canal around noon. The body of the agent - who remains unidentified -- was found in that canal and appeared to have drowned. Sheriff's Investigators from the Imperial County Sheriff's Department and Border Patrol agents remain on scene investigating. Authorities say they found the body at Mineral Spa Road...

In a sprawling shantytown between the Salton Sea and a toxic dump site, children play barefoot on dirt roads, running beside leaking sewer lines and piles of rotting garbage thick with flies. Beneath their feet is broken glass; nearby, rusting machinery and wire. When the wind kicks up, they breathe dust and ash from an adjacent dump that contains elevated levels of cancer-causing dioxins. Their families are mostly farm workers who live in hundreds of hot and dilapidated trailers, many of them missing windows and siding. When the water pressure dropped a week ago, some residents collected the few drips...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. LAS VEGAS, Dec. 16 — The Bush administration took steps today to cut water supplies to California next month if water agencies in the state fail to reach an agreement over disputed flows from the Colorado River. Gale A. Norton, the secretary of the interior, said she signed documents today that would ensure that California loses access to extra flows of Colorado River water beginning Jan. 1 if there was no agreement by the end of this month. In years past, the state has typically drawn 800,000 acre-feet of surplus water,...

Elon Musk announced Sunday that the first tunnel of a proposed underground transportation network across Los Angeles County would open Dec. 10. “The first tunnel is almost done,” Musk tweeted to his 23.1 million followers shortly after 5 p.m. Musk’s Boring Co. is building the tunnel beneath the city of Hawthorne, part of his grand vision for a transportation network that whisks commuters across the county. Last year, Hawthorne officials approved the Boring Co.’s request to tunnel west from Space X headquarters. At the time, they said the tunnel had extended 500 feet. The company has said its technology...

When a catastrophic earthquake hits California, buildings will topple and potentially hundreds could be killed. But what gets less attention is the wrenching aftermath of such a huge temblor, which could leave whole neighborhoods torched by fires uninhabitable and hundreds of thousands of people without a home. Officials are grappling with where all these quake refugees would go. In the San Francisco Bay Area, more than 400,000 could be displaced in a magnitude 7 earthquake on the Hayward fault, which directly runs underneath cities like Berkeley, Oakland, Hayward and Fremont, said Ken Hudnut, the U.S. Geological Survey’s science advisor for...

In the San Francisco Bay Area, more than 400,000 could be displaced in a magnitude 7 earthquake on the Hayward fault, which directly runs underneath cities like Berkeley, Oakland, Hayward and Fremont, said Ken Hudnut, the U.S. Geological Survey’s science advisor for risk reduction. And it’s possible that more than 250,000 people in Southern California could be forced out of their homes after a major earthquake on the San Andreas fault, Hudnut said. Not everyone will need to stay in public shelters — many will stay with relatives, friends and hotels. Still, more than 175,000 people may have no other...

If the Hayward and Rodgers Creek faults broke simultaneously along their combined 118 miles, they could produce a magnitude 7.4 quake, said scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey. Such shaking would be more than five times stronger than the 1989 Loma Prieta quake on the San Andreas Fault that killed over 60 people and collapsed part of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. There hasn't been a major quake on the Hayward Fault in more than 140 years.... "This should be a reminder that folks in the Bay Area need to be prepared for a major earthquake," USGS geophysicist Janet Watt...