This earthquake is believed to have occurred on the Calaveras Fault, struck late the morning of Tuesday, about nine miles to the east from Seven Trees, a neighborhood located in San Jose, Calif.
A 5.1-magnitude earthquake struck across the San Francisco Bay Area on Tuesday according to U.S. Geological Survey. There was no immediate report of injuries or damage.
The earthquake hit around 11:00 a.m. in the local time zone, roughly nine miles to the east from Seven Trees, a neighborhood located in San Jose, Calif. The earthquake was followed five minutes after by the 3.1-magnitude following earthquake, U.S.G.S records show.
The U.S.G.S. described it as an “notable quake,” but described the magnitude of shaking that occurred from the earthquake as moderate to weak. The agency stated that approximately 18,000 people from the Bay Area and beyond had claimed to have felt the earthquake.
The earthquake felt felt across Central California north to Sacramento and Sonoma County, Annemarie Baltay seismologist, who spoke in a video released from the U.S.G.S.
“There is a one-in-100 chance of an aftershock greater than a magnitude 5 in the next day,” she declared. “There are a possibility of up to 15 aftershocks that are of magnitude 3 or higher within the following week. Aftershocks this large and duration are normal for events like this.”
The earthquake could have occurred on it’s Calaveras Fault, a branch of the San Andreas Fault system, Dr. Baltay said.
It was the largest earthquake to hit the Bay Area since a 6-magnitude earthquake in 2014, according to Lucy Jones, a geophysics researcher at the California Institute of Technology.
“It’s a once-every-decade or so type of event,” said Dr. Jones, the creator of the Dr. Lucy Jones Center for Science and Society.
This earthquake alert system that sends alerts to mobile phones, gave people at most just a few seconds of notice prior to the event she added, noting that the most terrifying part in an earthquake the suddenness and uncertainty.
In California there are two to three major earthquakes occur every year with the magnitude of 5.5 or higher and causing moderate damage to buildings as well as other structures, as per the California’s Department of Conservation.
Dr. Jones said she had not heard of any damages to structures or buildings on Tuesday afternoon and she was not expecting to see any.
“If a California building is damaged at this level of earthquake, it’s not following the building code,” she explained.
