TWO 5.7 Quakes plus a 5.5 Near Hawthorne Nevada Just Hit

All three of them about shook me out of bed here in Hanford, CA, about 35 miles south of Fresno. Crazy!

originally posted by: collietta

originally posted by: spirit_horse
a reply to: TrueAmerican

Hey TA, just a shot in the dark, but the old YS VS Calderas appear to have moved west from the source of the hot spot. Could the same have happened with the Long Valley caldera and the quakes further east could be from the hot spot that originally fed the LV Caldera?

I recall reading about the magma plume under the YS system possibly being all the way to the Oregon/Washington volcanic systems. Could we see new volcanoes develop east of the source that created the LV system? I know a section of Rocky Mountain chain approximately 80 miles subsided into the earth a long time ago associated with a Yellowstone eruption. Just wondering what your opinion on the matter was?

Yellowstone is not a fault. It's a hot spot, like an open wound in the Earth. It was once west, it created Idaho's Snake River valley, but it moves due to continental drift.

The Cascades and Sierra mountain ranges along with their volcanoes are created by two plates colliding and causing uplift of crust (creates mountains and quakes) and friction from the two plates grinding (creating magma).
It is possible that the Juan de Fuca and North American plate could be creating magma that feeds Yellowstone, but I thought that the hypothesis wasn't confirmed.

The yellowstone hot spot and the underlying cause of the long valley caldera are not related to cascade volcanism. The cascades volcanism is definativley related to the cascadia subduction zone, but there us no subduction faulting in the sierra, that happened more than 200 million years ago.
There is a good probability that both are antipodal impact hotspots or are impact related, yellowstone being very old, and long valley young, geologically speaking, at ~760kya. One must note that the long valley eruption roughly coincides with a proposed impact in michigan and a geomagnetic reversal.

Sorry, getting here late. So what's the consensus? I know quakes are impossible to predict usually, but are we thinking this was a warm up or just nothing?

Hi folks, just back after a very long hiatus and thus Hawthorne thing is why I wandered back. When I saw this earlier I got to wondering how close the quakes were to the giant military ordinance storage facility that surrounds Hawthorne. I was mildly surprised to see they were a bit southwest, sort of on the west side of another valley, then I noticed what looked like an open pit mine on the east side of the valley (dry lake?) They are using the sand from the open pit to build a massive rectangular mound right next to it. Whatever it is has me scratching my head and I wonder if it could have something to do with the quakes. It can be found on google earth but the usgs earthquake map has a more recent image and puts it's coordinates at 38.392 n. by 118.767w. Check it out.

originally posted by: thudpuddy
Whatever it is has me scratching my head and I wonder if it could have something to do with the quakes.

I seriously doubt it. Hawthorne is a known area of seismicity that seems to pretty much never stop. It goes light for long periods and then comes on strong sometimes. This is, or was, one of those times.

Update: Although it is still fidgeting with small quakes, the overall frequency and intensity of quakes has died down considerably. Party looks like it is pretty much over. With good results. No bigger quake, and everyone can go back to making America great again.

I remember John Lear talking about Hawthorne, NE and how the lake near there (Walker Lake?) was associated with the Navel Undersea Warefare Center where supposedly there were tunnels that connected to west coast. These quakes a natural coincidence?

a reply to: projectvxn

I remember when that was I was living in SPARKS (Bordering RENO) at the time. One of those earthquakes was strong enough to make me think for a moment that a truck or something HUGE had run into our house. I was on the 2nd floor of my house It rocked the house ,made a huge noise &nearly knocked me off my feet. It was the first earthquake that I had ever felt (I grew up in CHICAGO)

a reply to: jseeley

I was reading the same thing yesterday about the tunnels & caverns under Ca & Nv Supposedly some of the earthquakes are being caused by some of the lava tubes/ tunnels collapsing......I understand the same thing is happening in parts of Japan I have also been hearing lately that some of the earthquake activity is tied to the compressing of the magnetosphere by highly ionized solar winds/flares that are impacting our planet w/a great deal of energy which would normally be deflected by our magnetosphere

The South end of the Salton sea is swarming...

I think this is connected to Neveda.

No proof...Just a hunch!!

a reply to: radpeteage

I think your are correct. The Mag 5.7's and 5.6 near Hawthorne are in the Walker Lane Seismic Zone. The Walker Lane accounts for/accommodates 25-30% of the plate motion between the Pacific plate and the North American plate. The San Andreas fault, more widely known, accounts for the other 70-75%. So seeing the very southern tip of the San Andreas do its thing doesn't surprise me.