SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA and MEXICO - The area surrounding the California-Mexico border has been a lot shakier over the past few days. Since early Monday morning, the San Andreas Fault has seen more than 140 earthquakes, two of which reached at least a 4.3-magnitude on the Richter scale.
The swarms started occurring at 4 AM on Monday, United States Geological Survey (USGS) Seismologist Robert Graves told CNBC, and while the quakes weren’t particularly strong, he says this is still something to take note of.
"They are not strongly damaging earthquakes but obviously the fact there are so many of them and they are occurring so close in time is something that deserves our attention," said Graves. "Obviously, we're looking at that very closely.”
Imperial County, the epicenter for many of the quakes, lies along the U.S.-Mexico border and is home to a number of active fault strands. These strands include the "main fault,” also known as the San Andreas fault. This fault line, now made popular by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson-fronted disaster movie fame, is capable of producing 8.0-magnitude earthquakes.
"There's always the potential that a larger earthquake could occur," Graves continued in the interview with CNBC. "We haven't seen anything in the current set of observations that would suggest that that is going to happen but we obviously cannot rule it out.”
Graves estimated a five percent chance of a larger-scaled earthquake, explaining that this type of earthquake swarm means that the probability doesn't diminish quite as quickly. This won't necessarily mean anything capable of doing major damage, however. The probability of a 7.0-magnitude or above quake occurring is "far less than one percent,” the seismologist assures.
CNBC reports that the last major earthquake along the southern section of the San Andreas Fault was in 1857, and topped out at a 7.8-magnitude.
A spokesperson for the Imperial County Sheriff's Department confirmed on Tuesday that there have been no reports of injuries or damage from any of the preceding earthquakes.
