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Earthquake swarm shakes remote area along eastern Sierra

http://www.bakersfield.com/24hour/nation/story/1665488p-9413344c.html

The Associated Press

MAMMOTH LAKES, Calif. (AP) - A swarm of earthquakes - one a magnitude-5.5 - jolted a remote, sparsely populated area along the eastern Sierra Nevada on Saturday, authorities said.

A Mono County sheriff's dispatcher said there were no immediate reports of any injuries or damage from the temblors centered along the California-Nevada line about 30 miles northeast of Mammoth Lakes.

David Oppenheimer, a seismologist for the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, said most of the 70 quakes in the sequence that began 12:02 a.m. Saturday were magnitude-2 or less.

The magnitude-5.5 temblor that struck at 4:02 p.m. was followed by a magnitude-5.4 quake at 4:43 p.m., he said. The moderate quakes were the biggest in the swarm and the biggest on the fault in more than a decade.

"It's been quite a robust sequence," Oppenheimer said. "It's not clear how it'll play out. There could be more magnitude-5s or it could die off in an hour or two."

Some of the quakes were felt 35 miles away in Hawthorne, Nev.

"They (quakes) just felt like a hit and a rolling sensation," said Mineral County sheriff's dispatcher Lorraine Haight. "Of course, it's scary when you don't expect it."

Dennis Bauer of Lake Forest, Calif., was inside a small Mono Lake information center near Lee Vining when one of the temblors shook.

"It was like someone was leaning on the building and pushing it back and forth," he said.

The eastern Sierra has been a seismically active area. A similar sequence was centered in the same area over a one-week period in 1980, Oppenheimer said. The activity died down in 1984 before picking up again in 1992.

"For whatever reasons this fault seems to make a lot of noise," Oppenheimer said. "It pops off every once in a while."

The Great Basin that covers most of Nevada and Utah is pulling part, causing the quakes, he said.