Parkfield Earthquake - Recent Developments

Recent Developments

In December 2004, seismologists at the University of California, Berkeley announced the discovery of subtle tremors near Cholame, a hamlet near the San Andreas fault directly south of Coalinga. This is in a region of the locked fault below the Parkfield episodes, last creating a 8.0 magnitude quake at Fort Tejon in 1857. These tremors were discovered using deep borehole seismometers that avoid surface noise. The spectral signatures of these motions are more similar to those of magma movement near volcanos than of typical earthquakes, but it is believed that the motions are not due to magma or fluid motion. It is hoped that this new discovery may sometime inform scientists as to the degree of danger presented by known locked faults. It is not currently expected that this knowledge will be refined into a precise predictive tool.

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