3.3 Earthquake in SOuthern California near Palomar Mountain

My Wife and I were just going to bed when all the sudden we heard this lound booming, rumbling noise. The House wasn't shaking like a earthquake but it was loud from what sounded like percussions. I don't think this was a earthquake but they just anounced it on the local news. Other people reported the same thing, even my neighbor called me and asked if I heard it. It sounded like Camp Pendleton testing range. I live in Escondido and only 15 miles from Pendelton and 15 miles from Palomar Mountain.

LA times

Whats weird is that we've never heard or felt anything below a 4.5 earthquake. Why was this one so loud and why the news was so quick to dismiss it as an earthquake?

Anyone Else in the area feel it?

Still showing up as a quake

earthquake.usgs.gov...

Magnitude 3.3
Date-Time

Friday, March 30, 2012 at 06:09:27 UTC
Thursday, March 29, 2012 at 11:09:27 PM at epicenter
Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location 33.303°N, 116.884°W
Depth 11.3 km (7.0 miles)
Region SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
Distances

6 km (4 miles) SSW (198°) from Palomar Observatory, CA
13 km (8 miles) WNW (302°) from Lake Henshaw, CA
14 km (9 miles) ENE (60°) from Valley Center, CA
27 km (17 miles) NE (43°) from Escondido, CA
63 km (39 miles) NNE (23°) from San Diego, CA

Location Uncertainty horizontal +/- 0.3 km (0.2 miles); depth +/- 0.7 km (0.4 miles)
Parameters Nph=147, Dmin=6 km, Rmss=0.38 sec, Gp= 47°,
M-type=local magnitude (ML), Version=0
Source

California Integrated Seismic Net:
USGS Caltech CGS UCB UCSD UNR

Event ID ci11086258

Type: Earthquake
45 minutes ago
Magnitude: 1.4
DateTime: Friday March 30 2012, 06:23:05 UTC
Region: Southern California
Depth: 15.6 km
Source: USGS Feed

Foreshock? or just the usual random lil tremors...

How far from LA are yall? Be SAFE!

90006 area

reply to post by Alchemst7


Quite a response on the quake cam....



abclocal.go.com...

I'm a little over 20 miles NW (Temecula valley area) from the epicenter and didn't feel anything.

earthquake.usgs.gov...

Magnitude 2.9
Date-Time

Friday, March 30, 2012 at 07:38:59 UTC
Friday, March 30, 2012 at 12:38:59 AM at epicenter

Location 33.303°N, 116.881°W
Depth 10.9 km (6.8 miles)
Region SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
Distances

6 km (4 miles) SSW (196°) from Palomar Observatory, CA
13 km (8 miles) WNW (303°) from Lake Henshaw, CA
14 km (9 miles) ENE (61°) from Valley Center, CA
27 km (17 miles) NE (43°) from Escondido, CA
32 km (20 miles) SE (135°) from Temecula, CA
63 km (39 miles) NNE (23°) from San Diego, CA

Location Uncertainty horizontal +/- 0.3 km (0.2 miles); depth +/- 0.8 km (0.5 miles)
Parameters Nph=148, Dmin=6 km, Rmss=0.38 sec, Gp= 47°,
M-type=local magnitude (ML), Version=0
Source

California Integrated Seismic Net:
USGS Caltech CGS UCB UCSD UNR

Event ID ci11086290

earthquake.usgs.gov...

swarm developing

reply to post by dreamfox1


Yes, indeed, and on every fault line, it seems.....

Is this unique, I wonder???

A quake on each and every fault line running north-south..... Hmmmmmm

I have watched and studied the circle of fire since '95. I have never seen anything like this. The other three quadrants have had massive earthquake activity in recent time. I am also concerned about the spur quakes branching towards Yellowstone.

If I lived on the West Coast I would have left two days ago!

Better to be alive than dead.

P

hisz.rsoe.hu...

reply to post by BiggerPicture


Im about 65 miles south of LA. This earthquake was about 20 miles north east of me. I"m still puzzled by what we heard last night. We hear almost every day Camp Pendleton bombing range and It sounded like that but louder!

We felt it here as well. We live in Valley Center, it was a booming noise and sort of shook the house, but it sounded more like a bomb going off. We called the fire department and they didn't know what it was, but they even said it didn't sound like an earthquake.

I'm convinced that it wasn't an earthquake but was something bigger thats being covered up. To many people who agree that this wasn't an earthquake and more towards explosions of some type.

Originally posted by Alchemst7
I'm convinced that it wasn't an earthquake but was something bigger thats being covered up. To many people who agree that this wasn't an earthquake and more towards explosions of some type.

I highly doubt it was anything other than an earthquake. There have been several quakes in the same area over the last few days. You do yourself a disservice by settling down on something bigger than an earthquake is happening here instead of doing a bit of research on the geology of the area.

To elaborate a bit:
The fault zone the OP earthquake occured on is estimated to be capable of ~7m. That is the Elsinore Fault Zone which extends from Chino / Corona to the east of San Diego. This fault zone is the northern extention of the Laguna Salada Fault, which is believed to be the cause of the Baja California quake of 2010. To the east are the San Jacinto Fault Zone, which could be considered an inferior west branch of the San Andreas though it appears to be the most active in SoCal, and the San Andreas Fault even farther east. The three faults run mostly parallel and it is typically less than 100 miles from the San Andreas Fault to the Elsinore Fault Zone with the San Jacinto Fault located roughly mid-way between them.

Earthquakes in the region are caused by the relative motions of the Pacific and North American plates with the Pacific sort of "rotating" thus the part of California west of the San Andreas is moving northwest; the North American plate is moving relatively southwest. Were it not for the Colorado River having its current course, the Gulf of California would likely extend to the current location of Salton Sea instead of stopping south of the border as that region is spreading: the Colorado's sediment has built a natural dam which keeps the seawater from entering the valley. The East Pacific Rise meddles with the San Andreas Fault somewhere around Salton Sea via the Brawley Seismic Zone andImperial Fault Zone.