Hi All. As most of you may already know I am very good at finding things. No brag, just fact. I have always wanted to say that.

Most of us by now are aware of the San Simeon quake. Most of you may also be aware of a M>6.0+ quake that occurred in the same area in 1952. I got to thinking about past quakes in the same area and naturally the 1857 quake came to mind. It has been said that the quake was located in the area of Chalome because of some reported foreshocks in that area. Again I got to thinking about that. I got to wondering if there was something somewhere that might list the quake activity prior to the 1857 quake. What I found is enough to give someone a pause to think.

You can click on the main link, and then click on “go to Catalog.” I think you will find it very interesting. Take Care…Don in creepy town

CATALOG OF SANTA BARBARA EARTHQUAKES - 1800 TO 1960

compiled and edited by Arthur Gibbs Sylvester, 2001

BSSA, Vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 28-29.

Historical Writings, by Edwin M. Sheridan. Vol. 5 pp. 113.

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA. Continuous shocks over area 300 miles which opened fissures 30 miles long in Lockwood Valley.

Southern California. "Continued shocks disturbing an area of over three hundred miles square, extending east from San Luis Obispo to the Colorado River, and north (?) to San Diego. -J. B. T. The shocks opened fissures at least thirty miles long in Lockwood Valley. -Verbal account of J. Deb. Shorb, Esq. [There is a place called Lockwood in Monterey County and a Lockwood Valley in the northern part of Ventura County, not far from Frazier Park and Lake of the Woods, through which the San Andreas fault runs. Mr. Wood feels certain that the epicenter of this earthquake was in the Ventura County region and not in Monterey County. If there were fissures in the ground thirty miles long, the intensity in the epicentral region could hardly been less than X]

BSSA, Vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 18-19.

1852, Nov. 27-30, with a preliminary on Oct. 26, indigenous to the district - Santa Ynez and San Gabriel Ranges.

"... the first (earthquake) of record is a group rather than a single event, and occupied the last few days of Nov. 1852. The disturbance appears to have been located chiefly on the system of faults traversing the Santa Ynez and San Gabriel mountains and was thus indigenous to the district".

If the intensity were X in Lockwood Valley, the earthquake would certainly have been felt throughout Ventura and Santa Barbara, but unfortunately we have found no independent support for this inference. On the other hand, the Oct. 26 earthquakes were centered all over southern California, and noted especially at San Simeon. If the San Simeon earthquakes were truly foreshocks for the Nov. earthquakes, then it seems reasonable to conclude the main Nov. earthquakes were in Monterey County, not Ventura County. The conclusion to be drawn is that the locations of the Nov. earthquakes, aside from that near Fort Yuma (CDMB, 1981), clearly speculative. Ed.

1852

Dec 17
CDMG, 1981, p. 144.

Trask (1857) states: "Two smart shocks occurred in San Luis Obispo, which fractured the walls of two adobe buildings, and threw down part of the wall of the house belonging to, and occupied by Don Jesus Pico and family." Now newspaper account of an earthquake on this date has yet been found. Don Jesus Pico's house was near San Simeon, not San Luis Obispo, and it was damaged by an earthquake on 1 February 1853 (Daily Alta California, 24 February 1853, p. 2).

• Santa Barbara Quake