Are there faults near Las Vegas that could produce a magnitude 7 earthquake? Are there more earthquakes in Nevada than in Arizona or New Mexico?
There are faults in the region around Las Vegas that have the potential to produce strong earthquakes on rare occasions. Rare means that the average time between the large earthquakes on any one of the faults is at least 1000-10,000 years. We do not know when the next one will happen, of course. There are also active faults with long average times between earthquakes in some parts of Arizona, and some parts of New Mexico. On average, Arizona and New Mexico both have fewer earthquakes than Nevada, but a strong Nevada earthquake is more likely to be close to Reno than to Las Vegas, so a state-wide average doesn’t tell you anything about the hazard faced by Las Vegas.
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