Bay Area hit by third earthquake in four days

[question everything]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-sfquake24dec24,1,655392.story?coll=la-headlines-california

Bay Area hit by third earthquake in four days
From the Associated Press

December 23, 2006

BERKELEY, Calif. -- A third small earthquake in four days rattled the San Francisco Bay Area on Saturday, but there were no immediate reports of injury or damage.

The temblor that struck at 9:21 a.m. had a preliminary magnitude of 3.5 and a depth of about 6.1 miles, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The epicenter was about 2 miles from Berkeley and 3 miles from Emeryville, across the bay from San Francisco. Residents throughout the Bay Area reported feeling the jolt, but police said there were no reports of injuries.

The latest earthquake was similar in magnitude and location to those that struck Wednesday and Friday. The three quakes erupted along the Hayward Fault, which geologists believe is due for a quake in the potentially lethal 6.7 to 7.0 range.

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. Ok it is STARTING to get creepy

and I hope these are not foreshocks

On the bright side, if they are not, they are releasing energy

[IndianaGreen]

6. Can the scientists determine if these are precursor quakes

to the Big One?

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. no

[SheilaT]

11. Oh. I thought they could tell

a precursor to a major quake from anything else. Darn.

[bigworld]

14. I think they can tell after the big main quake

.. a lot of good it'll do you now, though. :)

[Dover]

2. AND Mt. St. Helen and the Hawaiian Island volcanoes are active too.

A whole lotta moving and shaking and spewing going on...

Got an emergency plan?

[Viva_La_Revolution]

5. actually, this side of the pacific plate is very quiet...

over on the other side is where all the shakin' is goin' on.

http://www.iris.edu/seismon/

[a la izquierda]

3. Eh...I lived in earthquake central

this stuff happens all the time. Most people I know in L.A. don't get too freaked out about it, but are always prepared.

[goclark]

4. Me too LA

:scared:

[Porcupine]

7. Hayward fault quakes have not been too bad in the past

that said any fault can produce a whopper if that's where the dice roll on a given day. I remember a string of fairly small quakes when I was a kid where the largest was maybe a 5.

Use the warning to secure your valuables and check your water heater strapping. Anything that you can't replace you want to secure against dropping off shelfs. Secure tippy furniture and bookshelves to walls.

I have a family member who lost a whole collection of Hopi pottery in Loma Prieta. Don't let that happen to you.

[magellan]

22. Don't forget child locks on your cabinets and refrigerator door

They'll help keep everything from spilling onto the floor. I learned the hard way in '94.

Wow, that was slightly poetic!

[fob]

31. Actually the1868 earthquake was on the Hayward Fault and it was

known as "The Big One" until the 1906 quake. So don't be fooled, the Hayward fault can produce a 7.4 and it won't be described even remotely as "not too bad".

[Paranoid Pessimist]

8. As natural catastrophes go, I prefer earthquakes.

They're over with quick and you either have survived or are buried in rubble. Hurricanes and typhoons (I've experienced one small typhoon) take a long time and keep on damaging things for hours and hours. And you know they're coming; you have to sit around listening to the media reports of how imminent it is, whether it'll veer off or hit head on. Tornados are just too weirdly random, leaving some houses untouched while others are totally trashed. That's creepy. Earthquakes damage pretty much everything in the geographic area, some places get it worse than others due to things like liquifaction, but they don't have that pick-and-choose thing that tornados and cyclones have. Floods are a mess; the cleanup afterwords is probably worse than from an earthquake because of all the wet muck. Blizzards are miserable (I've experienced one of them) because being cold is awful. Big fires are bad, but they don't destroy everything in as big a geographic area as does an earthquake -- except here in California. Famines and epidemics only sort of qualify as natural catastrophes; don't know what they're like, but I'm sure I wouldn't enjoy anything about them.

No, if I have to sit around and fret about nature kicking my keester, I'm fine here in earthquake country. I've taken all the advice and have the place pretty well stocked up with survival supplies like they say to do: handcrank radios, water, few days worth of food. Of course, with my luck the earthquake will happen while I'm on the bus far away from my home and survival stuff -- that's what happened in 1989 Loma Prieta. Walked home; took hours; no damage when I got there; I was in an OK part of town. I'm still there.

To all a Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays whichever you prefer.

[Torn_Scorned_Ignored]

10. Shortwave Emergency Radio

http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/portable/1350.html

[SheilaT]

12. I live in tornado country

(Kansas), and while I've never personally experienced one, I have great respect for all of the things Mother Nature can throw at us. The one time I was around during an earthquake (it wa an aftershock of the Northridge quake) I actually slept through it, although many others near me were awakened by the same event.

[MnFats]

20. i think i'd prefer our blizzards and occasional tornado..

..to a hurricane or earthquake.
..you can prepare for a blizzard, but you're screwed if you get stranded in the countryside during one. it happens every winter....someone did not take heed....and is found frozen stiff...sometimes next spring..

[a la izquierda]

24. Me too...Oklahoma.

My friends in LA think I'm insane for living here. I remember my first tornado warning. I nearly pooped myself. But earthquakes never really bothered me all that much. You don't know when they're coming.

[Tom Joad]

13. Epicenter less than a mile from my home. No big deal.

just little shakes.

[tularetom]

15. Our animals have been acting goofy all day

We're about 125 miles from the epicenter as reported by USGS. The horses did not want to go back into their stalls and the dogs refused to go outside. The cats hid under the bed most of the day and this evening I could hear coyotes - something I have not heard for 5 years at least. May mean nothing - they've done this before and no earthquake took place but on the other hand I keep reading these accounts of domestic animals going bonkers just before the 1906 quake.

[originalpckelly]

16. This earthquake is exactly in the same spot where 5.8 and 7.0 quakes...

have been recorded.

I have a sinking feeling that something bad is about to happen. All SF DUers please check out your disaster plans. You never know when you'll need them.

[CreekDog]

17. And I just set up my aquarium!

But it barely budged thanks to being connected to the wall studs.

We have swarms of earthquakes from time to time and they are often swarms of small quakes located in nearly the same spot. While I was in Walnut Creek a few years ago, Danville/San Ramon had a swarm of earthquakes, more of them, more often and a few greater than 4's. Seemed like every few hours there was a quake, and then it just passed.

This set is much milder and less frequent.

[Fiendish Thingy]

26. If you're referring to the 1989 Loma Prieta 6.9/7.1 quake,

The epicenter of that quake was not on the same fault as this series of quakes; it was about 50 miles south, in the mountains near Santa Cruz, on the Loma Prieta/San Andreas fault, not the Hayward fault...but was felt up in the SF and Oakland areas...
Everyone should check their disaster plans and supplies, regardless- earthquake, flood, power failure...

Have a safe holiday season!

[ToolTex]

18. Friday a tiger in the SF zoo attacked a handler. Out of character they said.

n/t

[TheDebbieDee]

23. I read lots of articles.......

about how animals can sense changes in the weather or environment and that this may cause unusual behavior...........

[IndianaGreen]

25. China claims that farm animals can foretell when there is a quake coming

Everything you described in your post has been mentioned by the Chinese. Perhaps there is something there. Perhaps animals can detect minute changes in the magnetic field of the Earth that are caused by extreme tectonic stress. Something to be researched by the know-it-all Western scientists.

[Hardpan]

19. It's San Francisco, for petes sake! What else did you expect?

[xchrom]

21. no, it's across the bay from san francisco.

IF a big one hits on this fault line there will be even more damage than in s.f. -- we've had fewer big ones -- so we have more infrastructure that can be damaged.

[IndianaGreen]

27. There has been an increase in minor earthquake activity in the Midwest

and there is some concern that the New Madrid fault is waking up.

The earthquake that caused the 2004 tsunami caused the Earth's rotation to slow down by a millionth of a second, which doesn't seem like much, but it certainly released enough energy to affect every major fault on the planet.

[Fiendish Thingy]

28. I'll take a CA earthquake any day over a LA hurricane/flood n/t

[Mz Pip]

29. Didn't even feel

the second ones. :shrug:

THe Hayward Fault has been silent for a long long time and is 'due' for some action, so they say. I've been hearing that ever since I moved here in 1969.

I've got plenty of food and water and know how to turn off the gas line. That's about all I can do.

Mz Pip
:dem:

[Roland99]

30. It's God sending a message to those liberals waging war on Christmas

or something....



;)

[junior college]

32. I live in SF over in Bernal

and I felt one of the three jolts. It was fairly minor but it did have me freaked out for about one second. My wife was in the other room and said she felt nothing. This is a good reminder to me to secure paintings, mirrors, bookshelves and things like that. If a really big one hit I'm afraid I would be injured by my own stuff falling on me rather than the walls or cieling. I have ten gallons of emergency water in the garage but I suppose we could also drink the water in our hot water heater. Someone told me that if you keep your toilet reservoir clean you can drink that too.

[Gormy Cuss]

33. HAYWARD FAULT: 3 recent temblors are usual activity

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/12/24/BAGSKN5FS41.DTL

These three quakes are minor occurrences," said David Schwartz, a USGS geologist. "The fact they occurred within four days has to be looked at as random and coincidental."

The quakes occurred in what experts called a "pocket" of the Hayward Fault that is prone to quakes. Although it is somewhat unusual to see three quakes in such quick succession, they said, it is not unheard of.

"As far as we can tell, this is pretty standard behavior for that section of the fault," Schwartz said.

Photo showing just how close these three were to each other and the fault line: