Cali Nevada Earthquake

select-fire · July 09, 2021 12:27

Magnitude 5.9 earthquake shakes up California-Nevada border, regionally largest 'in almost two and a half decades'

Elinor Aspegren, USA TODAY

Thu, July 8, 2021, 10:21 PM

A magnitude 5.9 earthquake shook the California-Nevada border Thursday afternoon, with people reporting feeling a jolt hundreds of miles away, as far as the Bay Area, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The earthquake, reported just south of Lake Tahoe, triggered a series of aftershocks with at least one with a 4.6 magnitude, the USGS said.

Regionally, “this would be the largest one in almost two and a half decades,” according to Graham Kent, director of the University of Nevada, Reno’s seismological lab. “It’s 5.9 and some change — to the average person, it’s a magnitude 6.0.”

Though originally reported as at least two separate earthquakes, the false report came from an automatic systems error, said Seismologist Dr. Lucy Jones on Twitter. The USGS revised the report, removing one reported quake a few miles south of Stockton in central California.

“A M~6 quake is usually felt for more than 100 miles so it is not surprising it was felt in the Central Valley," Jones said.

The shaking was felt in at least two states, with more than 20,000 reports coming into the USGS website by 6 p.m. local time.

Cali Nevada Earthquake

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