What magnitude was the Earthquake in Los Angeles today?”
No damage reported from magnitude-4.4 Calif. quake By ALICIA CHANG and JOHN ANTCZAK (AP) – 1 hour ago LOS ANGELES — Southern Californians were jolted from their sleep before dawn Tuesday as a small but strongly felt earthquake struck beneath Los Angeles’ eastern suburbs. No damage or injuries were reported, however, and jangled nerves appeared to be the biggest impact of the magnitude-4.4 temblor, which struck at 4:04 a.m. “It was a rude awakening,” said Amber Szabo, manager of the skin care store Lather in Pasadena. The quake was centered 10 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles, 12 miles under the city of Pico Rivera. In 1987, a fault in that area produced the magnitude-5.9 Whittier Narrows quake that killed eight people and caused more than $350 million in damage. But Tuesday’s quake was likely not an aftershock because too much time has elapsed, said seismologist Kate Hutton at the California Institute of Technology. Szabo said she and her husband ran out of their home “like craz
This earthquake occurred in the fold and thrust belt located on the east side of the Los Angeles Basin. The preliminary focal depth was 19 km (~12 miles), which is deeper than most earthquakes in the region. The earthquake was located ~2 km south of the hypocenter of the 1 October 1987 ML5.9 Whittier Narrows earthquake. Both today’s earthquake and the 1987 Whittier mainshock exhibited thrust faulting. However, the strike of the nodal planes was east-west in 1987 but for today’s earthquake the strike was rotated clockwise by ~30deg to N60degW, suggesting that a different thrust system was being activated. This earthquake may have been associated with the Puente Hills thrust. The most recent earthquake sequence in the Los Angles basin was the 29 July 2008 Mw5.4 Chino Hills earthquake sequence, located about 30 km (19 miles) to the southeast. The Chino Hills earthquake that was most likely caused by movement on the Whittier fault exhibited a mixture of strike-slip and thrust faulting. The
A 4.4 magnitude earthquake shook California early this morning just east of downtown Los Angeles. There have been no reports of damage or injuries. “It was a shake, but not bad. Our inmates slept through it and we had a few calls, but not as many as you would think,” (Pico Rivera sheriff’s station Sgt. Jacqueline Sanchez to AP). Though the quake was considered small, especially compared to the ones that hit Haiti and Chili, it was felt over a large area – even people from San Bernandino felt the rumbles. There is a chance that this “small” quake could trigger something bigger in the coming hours or next few days.
