Scores of aftershocks rattle the eastern Sierra in wake of 6.0-magnitude earthquake
Hours after many Fresno residents and others across California’s Central Valley felt the rattling of a 6.0-magnitude earthquake in northern Mono County on Thursday afternoon, aftershocks continue to rumble through the area east of the Sierra Nevada range.
As of 11 a.m. Friday, at least 130 aftershocks from the Antelope Valley earthquake have been recorded by the U.S. Geological Survey in the area near the towns of Walker and Coleville, which sit along Highway 395 just a few miles west of the California-Nevada state line.
The strongest of the aftershocks was measured at a magnitude of 5.2 and occurred less than a minute after the original quake struck the same area at about 3:50 p.m. Thursday. Most of the aftershocks overnight Thursday and into Friday morning registered at 4.0 magnitude or less.
The epicenter of the earthquake is about 110 miles north of Fresno, along a known fault called the Antelope Valley fault, at a depth of about 4.6 miles. Almost all of the aftershocks have been centered within five miles of the original quake.
The earthquake was strong enough to shake loose boulders that tumbled onto Highway 395, the main artery through the Owens Valley and northward past Bishop, Mono Lake, and Bridgeport on the east side of the Sierra.
But no major damage or injuries have been reported as a result of the temblor – the strongest earthquake to strike in that part of California and Nevada since 1994, said Austin Elliott, a research geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey.
The USGS reported that over the past 100 years, there have been 33 earthquakes of 5.0 magnitude or greater within a range of 100 kilometers, or 62 miles, of Thursday’s epicenter. Only two of those have been stronger – the 6.1-magnitude Double Spring Flat earthquake about 22 miles away in western Nevada in 1994, and another 6.1-magnitude quake about 40 miles to the north in 1933.
State Sen. Andreas Borgeas, a Fresno Republican whose 8th Senate District includes northern Mono County, was driving in Fresno when he said he felt the earthquake. “The car started to act up, but I thought it was because I have an old beat-up car with old tires and a bad engine,” Borgeas said Thursday afternoon.
Borgeas said he learned from Mono County Sheriff Ingrid Braun that there were no injuries or major damage in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake.
