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A swarm of nearly 200 small earthquakes that shook Southern California residents in the Salton Sea area last week raised concerns they might trigger a larger earthquake on the southern San Andreas Fault. At the same time, scientists from Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Nevada Seismological Laboratory published their recent discovery of a potentially significant fault that lies along the eastern edge of the Salton Sea.
The presence of the newly mapped Salton Trough Fault, which runs parallel to the San Andreas Fault, could impact current seismic hazard models in the earthquake-prone region that includes the greater Los Angeles area. Mapping of earthquake faults provides important information for earthquake rupture and ground-shaking models, which helps protect lives and reduce property loss from these natural hazards.Image credit: Scripps Institution of Oceanography/UC San Diego
