I can't imagine what would be causing the hydrogen sulfide smell. I'm definitely not an expert in chemistry. Possibly the pressure and grinding close to the fault is metamorphosing the rocks so that the resulting powder can react more easily with whatever comes in contact with it, maybe even the water from this recent rain we got. It could even be something released from the ground before and at the time of movement. Or it could be from something illegally dumped or those oilwells that I see along the Antelope Valley freeway. This reminded me of a conversation I had with my dad the afternoon before the Northridge quake. I was telling him how weird it looked out. There was a haze near the ground that prevented me from seeing more than two blocks. At the same time, if I looked up the sky was clear and blue. I've seen lots of haze since then, but nothing to compare with the low visibility of that day. It didn't have any rotten egg smell that I can remember.

I also did some exploring up at Lake Elizabeth, Lake Hughes, Lake Palmdale and south of Pearblossom one day when I was up there to visit a rock and gem show west of Lancaster. I bought some fluorite and some amythest from these people that travel around in campers and sell stuff to collectors and handicrafters. It is really cool to see all of these little lakes and swamps along the low spots formed by the fault.

Steven T.