On Monday Morning, Los Angeles and the surrounding area were awoken by what geologists are saying to be earthquakes that were felt across an unusually large area. The Magnitude 4.7, centred in the San Jacinto Mountain, was one of the largest quakes to hit the area in 3 years. There was little damage from the 9:56am shock but over 100 aftershocks were recorded. The area affected by a medium sized earthquake was a lot larger than usually felt with the size of earthquake; geologists have said that this is because the San Jacinto Fault Zone is in an area of rock which is made of hard Granite that transmits waves more effectively due to its crystalline structure.
The largest recent quake from this area was 1968 were a 6.35 Magnitude quake downed power lines and rocked the area and across LA for 5 minutes. However, though the quake results in stress release along this fault line it is likely to have caused increase stress on others and there is a very small chance that this quake precedes a larger quake, similar to that of the Northridge quake of 1996.
The Earthquake comes exactly two years after the Japan Earthquake and Tsunami.
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