Hi All. It seems that there are some people who don’t agree with Lucy Jones assessment of the 5.1 Anza quake. Take Care…Don in creepy town

“Historically, the San Jacinto fault zone has been a source of more moderate to large earthquakes than any other zone in California, said Lucy Jones, scientist in charge of the U.S. Geological Survey office at Cal Tech.

Counting Tuesday's quake, she said, there have been 19 quakes of 5.0 or above along the fault in the last 100 years.

But Rockwell said much stronger quakes occur every 250 to 300 years. Geologic evidence points to major earthquakes sometime around 1200, 1500 and 1750, probably all at magnitude 7.0 or above.

The more than 3-mile-wide San Jacinto fault zone branches off the San Andreas fault north of San Bernardino and cuts across the northeast corner of San Diego County near Borrego Springs. The San Jacinto fault delivered a 6.5 magnitude earthquake in 1968, cracking state Route 78 in several locations. A 6.6 earthquake was recorded in 1986.

Moving 10 to 15 millimeters per year, Jones said, the slip rate of the San Jacinto fault is second in California only to the mighty San Andreas, at 25 to 35 millimeters.

Patrick Abbott, an SDSU geologist, said that while Tuesday night's short earthquake didn't release much energy to the surface, the seismic waves traveled easily through the hard granite beneath the surface around Anza -- hence the sharp jolt felt 60 miles or more away.

Rockwell said he happened to be "sitting right on top of the epicenter" Sunday while he and a fellow researcher gathered information for a project proposal on the seismological properties of fault zones.

"I just wish I'd known it was coming," he said.”

• Disagree