Posted on 09/10/2012 2:08:49 PM PDT by Talisker
I know asking if things smell in LA sounds like the beginning of a joke... but I've read some dubious - yet pervasive - claims today that people in the San Fernando Valley, the base of the San Gabriel Mountains, the Northridge/Granada Hills area, Inland Empire in general, etc., are smelling an incredibly sulfurous stench.
Inversions layer, Salton Sea rot, waste plant malfunctions all have been theorized but found wanting for various reasons. Reports are that an elementary school closed in the area because kids felt sick.
Historically, hydrogen sulphide gas has often been forced out of the ground in areas because of the pressure created by an immanent large earthquake. This was noticed in the Sausalito area the day before the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and in various European earthquakes going back as far as the 1700s, and before the New Madrid earthquake in the 1800s in Missouri.
Also, in the past week or so, a swarm of over 300 fair to medium sized earthquakes happened in SoCal. Which doesn't necessarily mean any significant pressure was released, since the earthquake scale is logrithmic. And as if that's not enough, a 7.6 earthquake hit right off the coast of Costa Rica a week ago, but didn't taper off with any significant aftershocks, suggesting that the quake didn't finish releasing its eruption pressure, which might be continuing northwards along the plate edge.
So.
If any FReepers are down in that area and can validate, invalidate, or comment generally or specifically on what LA smells like these days (without laughing too hard - remember, you're doing science here, so no giggling), I'd appreciate it.
Please keep us posted with any updates as to the source. We hope and pray it’s not earthquake related.
We’re in Sierra Madre/ Monrovia and we’re smelling it too. Also reported in San Fernando Valley ~ 15 miles west of here. We are a good 100 miles NW of Salton Sea. We also had a big thunder and lightning storm last night.
I’d like to know references, though, to the ‘this always happens before a huge earthquake’ quotes. Is this an ‘earthquake weather’ National Enquirer sort of scientific theory, or something taken from scientific studies?
( I do need to sleep tonight). Salton Sea is also part of the Rift Zone.
Hey, I just drove across the entire LA basin and smelled nothing sulfurous. Nowhere.
‘Historically, hydrogen sulphide gas has often been forced out of the ground in areas because of the pressure created by an immanent large earthquake.’ My husband is a geologist. He does not buy the ‘this happens before an EQ’ because if it were true, they’d have been predicting earthquakes for a long time now, and they would use the early warnings to set off alarms for the citizens.
He thinks it has to do with muggy air + high heat + complex sewer systems with air captured in them due to the storms and humidity.
We’re way due.
Exactly my first thought although it is probably some type of oil/natural gas fissure that has opened up.
LA as a whole stinks anyway so it must be pretty bad if the locals noticed it.
Something possibly ominous is that California has become very seismically quiet of late:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqscanv/
Compared to a “normal” CA earthquake map, this is the quietest it has looked in many years.
Around here it smells like sulfur when they irrigate. Would be surprised if it were earthquake related, I’d be more concerned about the super volcano that is Old Faithful blowing.
Then again, it was the mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa, at the podium of the DNC when they thrice rejected God.
Brimstone is the old name for sulphur, btw.
He thinks it has to do with muggy air + high heat + complex sewer systems with air captured in them due to the storms and humidity.
Well, if he thinks the government would use reliable early warnings to "set off alarms for the citizens"... then bless his heart. As for the following links, you might be interested in the reading - he probably won't. They are neither peer-reviewed nor accepted by mainstream geologists. In fact, they actually rely on eye-witness reports from... people.
I lived in Los Angeles for half a century, and don't ever recall any sulfur smell in town after a big desert storm. I spent a lot of years growing up in the south bay region, and definitely remember the smell of the oil fields, but even that isn't exactly a sulfur smell.
Top of the hour news:
odor spreading
kids should stay indoors
stop calling 911
the odor is not dangerous
Air quality is NOT bad: Air Quality Map
That does sound like earthquake material.
GET. OUT. OF. DODGE. This is not a drill.
It’s a tough call but I would be outa there
Watch animal behavior- they know when the big one is coming
Of course by the time the birds leave, the fish leave, the dolphins beach themselves and the dog starts whining, it’s too late to leave
Stock survival supplies!
I just heard from a relative in south orange county. She’s heard/smelled NOTHING.
Correction: She’s heard nothing OF this situation, nor smelled anything.
Santa Ana winds blowing?
Orange County, CA weather...
http://weatherforyou.com/reports/index.php?forecast=zandh&pands=orange+county,california
Los Angeles County weather....
http://www.weather.com/weather/today/90012
Nope. No Santa Ana’s
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