3.0 Quake Rattles San Francisco Saturday Night

cbs13.com...

The U.S. Geological Survey says the 3.0-temblor struck at shortly before midnight Saturday and was centered about 17 miles southeast of San Francisco near San Leandro. The USGS recorded hundreds of responses on its website from people saying they felt the quake. But San Francisco police operations center said three hours after it hit that there hadn't been any calls from the public about the quake.

When I lived in the Bay Area, we'd consider

reply to post by argentus


I only been involved in small earthquake. At least only a few items fell to the ground.

The realtime world view map on USGS looks so serene compared to a month ago. What's up with that?

I flagged ya.

[edit on 30-5-2010 by randyvs]

reply to post by Romantic_Rebel


You probably don't feel many of the 'quakes in your area, but you do get a few -- mostly low magnitude. I remember there was one felt near you in Chico ........... hmmm....... that would've been back in '91 or '92 or so.

There was a pretty sizeable 'quake with an epicenter near Portola, around Ferndale in the same year. I was told that was felt as far away as Topaz, which is near Tahoe.

Do you get the emails generated by the USGS?

You can sign up for email notification of earthquakes for your area, or worldwide or whatever. I have mine set for notification of 5.0 or greater worldwide. I expect that a person that wanted to get notification of ALL worldwide temblors would spend most of their time deleting emails.

A 3.0 is a nothing temblor. It would feel little more than a truck rumbling by, assuming you even noticed it at all. I've felt a 4.1 and a 4.3, with the epicenter right below my feet - thrilling and momentarily scary - but even that was nothing to worry about and normally doesn't even make the news when you are in California.

Felt nothing here in Berkeley.

There were several small quakes in that area.

Hope nothing comes closer to me.

i was in san leandro and i didnt feel it.


3.0 is nothing though

Could this be a prelude to a bigger earthquake?

We get 1s, 2,s 3s, and even 4s all the time here. 5s and up are less common but still happen with some frequency. It's a perfectly regular occurrence and nothing warranting alarm in my opinion. When you see 6s or higher, then the potential for some damage at least exists. When you see 7s and higher, then it's a serious concern.

A 3 in the Bay Area is literally unnoticeable usually. Could it be a prelude to a larger quake? Technically yes, but there's no more reason to believe it would be any more than to believe any other minor quake would be.

Nice to know people are aware of earthquake activity, though. It never hurts to be aware and prepared. It's only a matter of time before a truly destructive quake hits the west coast again.