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Earthquake swarms could indicate a bigger problem in Tahoe – Judiciary News Service
Since April, small to moderate earthquakes have rocked the Lake Tahoe region. Some scholars suggest that swarms may indicate a larger, more destructive earthquake is imminent.
(Court news photo/Matthew Renda)
South Lake Tahoe, California (CN) – Lynn Thomas lives in her family’s cottage along the western shore of Lake Tahoe, and it’s not unusual to feel a jolt or two capable of shaking the house’s foundations and grinding dishes.
But something a little bigger hit the area during the morning hours of May 28.
“This was the biggest earthquake I’ve ever felt here,” Thomas said.
That morning, a 4.2-magnitude earthquake struck the middle of the lake on an unspeakable Friday. It shook some buildings around the sink but it didn’t cause many reports of dish shattering.
But it was the culmination of a series of small tremors that began to occur in April. And although it is harmless, it can portend evil for an area that remains especially vulnerable to the adverse effects of even an earthquake of medium size.
Indeed, geologists warn that those earthquakes could herald a quake large enough to trigger a tsunami capable of causing untold damage in the Lake Tahoe Basin.
“It’s a real concern,” said Jordan Seitz, a geologist with the California Geological Survey. “Although these earthquakes along the Tahoe Faults are rare and may not occur, there are larger earthquakes and if you experience a magnitude 7 earthquake, that is enough to dislodge the Earth’s surface by 10 or 20 feet.”
Such a displacement would cause an initial tsunami wave up to 30 feet in height, according to some studies. While a tsunami can cause serious damage to life and property, due to the enclosed nature of the Lake Tahoe Basin, an initial tsunami wave will be followed by a series of seismic waves—a series of standing waves in a partially or fully enclosed body of water, such as a lake—moving back and forth from a shore Lake to the lake shore.
“The waves will basically go back and forth and the entire shore of the lake will be at risk,” Seitz said.
To create such a scenario, there would have to be an earthquake of at least a magnitude of 6.0, something that has occurred repeatedly near fault lines running under Lake Tahoe in the recorded history of the California Geological Society.
“The greater the displacement in the surface of the lake in the lake, the greater the tsunami wave,” Seitz said. For the concerned population, a tsunami would require an earthquake of at least magnitude 6 if not 7.
“The last time a major earthquake occurred in Lake Tahoe was 5,000 years ago,” said Seitz, who has studied the geological record in the area to determine the earthquake frequency.
But Graham Kent, director of the Nevada Seismological Laboratory, is one of several scientists who believe the recent wave of earthquakes could portend a troubling possibility — big earthquakes are on the way.
Kent told the Sierra Sun newspaper this month that the series of earthquakes could be a harbinger of a more worrying danger along the fault lines under the lake.
“There’s always a little bit of a concern that we’re starting to see earthquakes that are big enough to make us worry about them,” Kent said.
Seitz also points out that the series of smaller earthquakes detected in the Lake Tahoe basin in April—magnitude no greater than 3.0—may be related to larger earthquakes along the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada.
In 2019, a series of earthquakes rocked Searles Valley near the town of Ridgecrest in the southern Sierra, the largest of which recorded 7.1 on the Richter scale. Then in April 2020, a 5.2-magnitude earthquake struck between Mono Lake and Mammoth Lakes on the eastern side of the Sierra, part of a swarm of earthquakes that included more than 500 mostly small earthquakes.
But Seitz thinks it’s all part of a pattern that could include the smaller earthquakes that Lake Tahoe has experienced in the past two months.
“It’s as if tectonic plates are disintegrating as they run from south to north along the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada,” Seitz said. “One earthquake increases the chance of an upcoming earthquake.”
Part of the reason this is so worrisome for Tahoe residents and everyone else who lives in towns in the eastern Sierra is because many of the largest earthquakes on record occurred not in the San Andreas Fault, which everyone knows and knows, but along the path of a walker-long fault that spans The eastern side of California near the Nevada border.
In 1872, one of the largest earthquakes recorded in California, the Lone Pine earthquake, struck the Owens River Valley, a magnitude 7.4 earthquake similar in size to the famous 1906 earthquake that devastated large swaths of San Francisco and the East Bay.
The Lone Pine earthquake and its six major aftershocks killed 27 people.
Other more recent earthquakes on the Walker Lane Fault—which extends from Death Valley northward to Lassen Volcanic National Park—include the 7.1-magnitude Hector Maine earthquake in 1999 and the 7.3-magnitude Landers earthquake in 1992 that killed three people and caused 90 damages. Million dollars.
While Lake Tahoe and its faults are not directly related to Poker Lane, there are undoubtedly some connections between fault lines, Seitz says.
“Think of it like dominos,” he said. “Slipping along one fault causes stress to adjacent faults and this advances when the next earthquake can occur.”
In Lake Tahoe, there are three faults that run north to south and have varying degrees of seismic vulnerability.
“The West Tahoe Fault is the most active,” Seitz said.
This fault runs parallel to the western shore of Lake Tahoe, begins roughly around Emerald Bay in the south and extends toward the city of Tahoe in the north. In the center of the lake, the North Tahoe or Stateline Fault runs from north to south. A swarm of small earthquakes has occurred in the lake at the southern end of this central fault line
Meanwhile, the Village Slope Fault, which runs parallel to the eastern shore of Lake Tahoe, caused the largest earthquake in modern history in nearly 500 years.
“West Tahoe is the most active, then Stateline and finally Incline Village,” Seitz said.
Since the Incline Village Fault is the least active and features the most recent large earthquakes, scientists believe it’s likely the West Tahoe or Stateline Fault that will create the next big quake.
“It would be unsurprising to see a major earthquake along West Tahoe,” Seitz said.
However, such earthquakes are rare and Tahoe residents may never see a major earthquake in their lifetime. In fact, odds are they won’t. But the possibility still exists.
“If you’re near a lake, especially at the shore, and you feel some shaking, then it’s time to run to higher ground,” Seitz said.
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