Hi All. This morning’s quake in the area of San Juan Bautista was just another run of the mill type quakes we get here. Some items were knocked off the shelves in the Windmill Market in San Juan Bautista. Other then that there was no damage done except to some peoples nerves.

Elizabeth Hernandez a supervisor at the Windmill Market was stocking shelves when the quake struck. She said it was “really scary.” She said a few items fell off the shelves and that it was like pulling something out and shaking it.

I was sitting at my computer sipping a cup of coffee reading my e-mail about the quake in Alaska when I heard a booming noise. I put my coffee down, as I knew we were going to get a shake. Sure enough about 2 seconds later there was a gentle roll then a sharp jolt then some shaking. This all lasted about 3 seconds. I knew the quake was close by as there was very little time between the “P wave” and the “S wave.” I picked up my cup of coffee and went back to reading my e-mail, as I knew there wouldn’t be anything on the USGS site for at least another 5 minutes.

The energy from this quake appears to be evenly spread out from the epicenter. The moment tensor solution indicates the quake was a strike slip on a normal fault. This isn’t consistent with quakes directly associated with the San Andreas fault. The epicenter of the quake appears to be about 3 miles west of the San Andreas fault so this may be why there is a difference.

This mornings quake is a little more then 6 miles from the 5.3Ml we had on 08/12/1998. Now that one got a lot of peoples attention. I know it got mine. A lot of stuff came down in the markets in the surrounding area and a crack was found in highway 101, which is about 5 miles north of San Juan Bautista. Some trailers at the KOA campground north of San Juan Bautista came off their jacks. I heard the usual booming noise, but unlike this mornings quake I didn’t get a chance to put my coffee down. I paid for that and never you mind how. Lets just say that for the rest of the day I had a little problem in sitting down plus a few other things. Anyway that was the strongest quake to have centered in the immediate area. It centered in an area where we are always having quakes so somewhere it found the energy needed to pop a good one. Take Care…Don in creepy town