Could the swarms of tremors in Monterey County point to a larger quake?”
Swarms of small tremors deep beneath the ground after two recent quakes in Monterey County may be adding stress to a seismically locked segment of the San Andreas fault and could presage a major earthquake, two Berkeley scientists suggest. ——————————————————————————– Images View Larger Image ——————————————————————————– More Bay Area News More charges in scam implicating BofA worker 07.11.09 Obama taps Californians for key posts 07.11.09 Talks resume but budget woes spread 07.11.09 Teen on ecstasy killed man, Oakland cops say 07.11.09 ——————————————————————————– The scientists detected an abrupt increase in tremor activity beneath the tiny San Luis Obispo County town of Cholame, just after two large quakes struck on the San Andreas fault in nearby Parkfield and San Simeon in Monterey County. That rise in activity, say Robert Nadea
Swarms of small tremors deep beneath the ground after two recent quakes in Monterey County may be adding stress to a seismically locked segment of the San Andreas fault and could presage a major earthquake, two Berkeley scientists suggest. The scientists detected an abrupt increase in tremor activity beneath the tiny San Luis Obispo County town of Cholame, just after two large quakes struck on the San Andreas fault in nearby Park field and San Simeon in Monterey County. That rise in activity, say Robert Nadeau and Aurélie Guilhem of the UC Berkeley Seismological Laboratory, indicates that stress is increasing inside the San Andreas at Cholame, 45 miles southeast of the epicenter of the 1857 Fort Tejon quake at Morgan Peak. The temblor, one of the greatest earthquakes in California history, caused little damage because the region was virtually uninhabited at the time, but the fault has generated no significant movement since then and is considered locked for 185 miles to the south.
