Small quake shakes Ortega Highway area
May 8th, 2008, 11:33 am · 3 Comments · posted by grobbins
UPDATE: This quake is under review by USGS. It might have been a “phantom” quake. USGS software sometimes reports quakes that didn’t happen, due to glitches.
A magnitude 2.4 earthquake occurred near Ortega Highway, close to the border of Orange and Riverside counties, at 11:01 a.m., the U.S. Geological Survey says. The quake erupted 4.4 miles beneath the Earth’s surface, within a mile of the campground run by the Forest Service in the Cleveland National Forest. The quake appears to have occurred on the Elsinore fault system. But geologists say that there are other faults in that general area.
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May 8th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
As of the 3pm update, the USGS web site http://pasadena.wr.usgs.gov/recenteqs/Ma…) has removed this earthquake event as if it never existed.
FROM SCIENCEDUDE: The USGS site has been glitchy lately. This is the second time that this has happened. The story and image you see were taken directly from the USGS site. We used USGS coordinates to locate the quake on Google Earth. The USGS post was very clear and precise. I don’t know why the quake would drop from the list. A mag 2.4 event couldn’t be mistaken for a passing truck. I’ll keep an eye on it.
Gary
May 10th, 2008 at 12:56 am
The removal of a quake from the USGS maps is a common occurrence. The USGS system uses sophisticated computer software to automatically detect, locate and place quakes on the map. The system generally works well but it is still a piece of computer software and is prone to errors. Many factors can contribute to the system detecting false quakes or incorrectly identifying the magnitude or location.
All quakes will be reviewed by a seismologist. It often takes a few days for smaller quakes to be reviewed. It is during this manual review that magnitudes, depth and locations will be corrected. And yes, sometimes a quake we see on the map turns out to be nothing at all.
May 15th, 2008 at 9:34 am
[…] Small quake off Ortega Highway in South County […]