Hi All. Well that little 5.2 wasn’t exactly were I thought it would be, but it is a start.

It started here as a gentle roller then got a little bigger, then started rocking and ended with a good jolt.

Tonight’s quake occurred on the Sargent fault. Quakes of this magnitude do occur on this fault from time to from. Quakes of a much lower magnitude occur along this section of the fault quite often so it’s kind of hard to understand where it finds time to pop one like tonight.

This quake appears to have occurred in the area of 6 other quakes that have occurred just recently, 3 of which were over 3.0. There were more, but I didn’t include them.

2002 01 11 213925.56 36.84 -121.58 6 2.80 MDNC
2002 01 14 090020.26 36.85 -121.58 6 2.90 MDNC
2002 02 24 084224.81 36.84 -121.58 7 2.90 MDNC
2002 04 23 115920 36.87 -121.61 9 3.70 MwBRK
2002 04 30 053657 36.96 -121.60 5 3.00 MLNC
2002 05 05 054830 36.90 -121.63 6 3.20 MLN

As you can see this area seems to draw quakes in the 5.0+ range.

1974 11 28 230124.80 36.91 -121.50 9 5.20 MLBRK
1990 04 18 134138.80 36.92 -121.67 6 5.00 MLBRK
1990 04 18 135351.40 36.92 -121.68 5 5.40 mb GS
1990 04 18 154603.70 36.93 -121.69 9 5.20 MLBRK
1993 01 16 062934.90 37.03 -121.46 5 5.30 MLBRK

With the data that I use it may not always trigger a quake where you think it should, but it will sure find the weak spots. There is still some instability in the Bay Area and will continue until 05/18/2002. It neither’s rather doubtful that this quake was strong enough to transfer any strain nor was it strong enough to reduce any strain however as with anything else there is no real way of knowing. Take Care…Don in creepy, but sometimes shaky town