Hi All,

The SSA is having their meeting at Lake Tahoe this week and of course Parkfield is a hot topic of conversation. But it goes a little further than Parkfield in this news article published by CBS5.

New Information about Parkfield Quake

Apr 27, 2005 6:10 pm US/Pacific
New information from last September's magnitude 6 earthquake in Parkfield suggests that stress is building south of the area that ruptured.

The concern is for a possible repeat of the Great Fort Tejon earthquake of 1857. That magnitude 7.9 quake ruptured 217 miles of the San Andreas fault from Parkfield south to Los Angeles. Considering the increase in population in the area in the 148 years since, a similar quake could have disastrous consequences.

Scientists from the United States Geological Survey are presenting their Parkfield findings to the annual meeting of the Seismological Society of America Wednesday at Lake Tahoe. But they and others caution that much more research is needed.

"It is of concern, but I don't feel we have enough information to say it's about to happen or it's not about to happen," said USGS researcher Jessica Murray.

In the 1980s, there was concern that an earthquake in Parkfield could be the precursor to another Fort Tejon-style disaster. But analysis of last September's quake shows it was unlike the others that have occurred regularly in the area. A computer-aided look under the surface of the earth shows the main break represented by the large red object and hundreds of aftershocks represented by white dots all occurring to the north, with no activity south.

But what does it mean? Nine scientists from different agencies working for the governor's Office of Emergency Services have the job of evaluating all new, potentially significant earthquake science, and advising OES if it needs to take action. That could include a public warning of a potential quake, or -- as may be more likely in this case -- a fine tuning of local police and fire department preparations.

"We currently have an earthquake-response plan for Parkfield and for Southern California and it may be time to renew those," said OES regional administrator Rich Eisner.

One thing that has come out of Parkfield is that hopes for a reliable short-term earthquake warning are dim. Despite a quake in the most heavily instrumented location on earth, scientists were not able to detect any precursor to the September temblor.