By Kelly Rayburn
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
The second earthquake in three days struck Los Angeles Tuesday
morning, only a month after the city was hit with the biggest
temblor since the 1994 Northridge quake.
Seismologists at both UCLA and the California Institute of
Technology said faultline activity like what has occurred in the
last three days is common for Los Angeles and that these small-size
quakes don’t necessarily indicate that a big one is on the
way.
Residents in L.A.’s Korea Town felt Tuesday’s quake,
which measured 2.5 on the Richter scale. A Sunday 2.9 quake was
centered one mile west of Silver Lake. Also, a 3.2 quake struck
beneath the ocean 90 miles west of L.A. at 8:30 a.m. No injuries or
damages were reported in either case.
On Sept. 9, a 4.2 quake hit L.A., causing minimal damage, but
shattering windows in Westwood residences.
“This is more activity than the usual, but it’s not
alarming,” said John Vidale, an associate professor with the
UCLA Earth and Space Science department.
A Cal Tech seismologist said … the small quakes don’t
say much about what will happen in the future.
“There haven’t been any very surprising earthquakes
under Los Angeles in the last few years,” Vidale added.
“Our understanding of the faultline system is about the same
as it’s been for a while.”
Vidale said it is difficult for seismologists to determine
whether small quakes are foreshocks for future larger quakes or are
unrelated to future temblors.
“There is a slightly bigger chance of having another
earthquake now, but not that much bigger,” he said.
Cal Tech seismologist Agill Hauksson said anywhere from 20 to 30
earthquakes this size occur a year in the L.A. area and that the
small quakes don’t say much about what will happen in the
future.
The two quakes were both shallow, occurring within a kilometer
of the earth’s surface. Typically, quakes happen between five
and 20 kilometers deep, Vidale said.
Deeper quakes offer more reason to worry ““ the 1994
Northridge quake was much deeper, Vidale said.
Hauksson said there are two fault-line systems under L.A., one
deep and one shallow. There hasn’t been a major quake on the
shallow system “for quite a while,” he said.
With reports from Daily Bruin wire services.