(OPINION) ETH – Are we getting close to a major seismic event on the west coast? Within the past several days, we have seen hundreds of earthquakes happen in southern California, there have been large earthquakes offshore near the Cascadia Subduction Zone, and there has been a very alarming swarm of earthquakes at Mt. Hood.
We haven’t seen this much seismic activity along the west coast in quite a long time, and many are concerned that this could be leading up to something really big. At this moment, scientists are carefully monitoring the area around the Salton Sea. According to the USGS, in one 24 hour period over the weekend more than 600 earthquakes of at least magnitude 1.0 shook that area of southern California…
More than 600 small earthquakes have been recorded this weekend in a rural area near the Salton Sea in Southern California, with the largest having a magnitude of 5.3, a US Geological Survey geophysicist told CNN. Geophysicist Randy Baldwin said 603 temblors with a magnitude of at least 1 happened in the area from Saturday to just before sunrise Sunday. The magnitude 5.3 quake was felt throughout the region.
In fact, it is being reported that it was even felt at an apartment building that was 95 miles away from the epicenter of the earthquake… People in Chula Vista, San Diego, El Centro, and Indio felt the 5.3 quake, according to the USGS, Did You Feel It reports. The tool collects information from people who report they’ve felt an earthquake and creates an interactive map.
Saturday morning’s shaking could be felt in an apartment building near Del Mar, California, approximately 95 miles away from the location of the earthquake. When I wrote about the alarming rise of earthquake activity on the west coast a week ago, just over 1,000 earthquakes had occurred in California and Nevada over the previous seven days. Now that number is up to 1,757, and it seems to be going up with each passing hour.
Elsewhere, a pair of magnitude 5.9 earthquakes were reported off the coast of Oregon on Friday… Elsewhere, two 5.9 magnitude earthquakes struck in the Pacific Ocean around 89 and 98 miles west of the coastal town of Gold Beach, Oregon, after 1 a.m. PT Friday, the USGS reported. At least four earthquakes ranging in magnitudes from 3.9 to 5.9 occurred in that area in the previous few hours, according to USGS.
The entire west coast of the United States sits along the infamous “Ring of Fire”, and so there are always quakes in the region, but 5.9 is unusually large. And the fact that these quakes were not too far from the Cascadia Subduction Zone is particularly alarming. The day before, residents of San Jose were shaken by a magnitude 3.6 earthquake… A 3.6-magnitude earthquake shook San Jose on Thursday morning, the U.S. Geological Survey reports. READ MORE
