SALTON SEA – (INT) - A swarm of nearly 300 small earthquakes that rumbled beneath the Salton Sea raised concerns they might trigger a larger earthquake on the southern San Andreas Fault.

Now, scientists have announced the discovery of a potentially significant fault that lies beneath the eastern edge of California’s largest lake.

Scientists from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego have mapped the Salton Trough Fault, which runs parallel to the San Andreas Fault.

The research team used a suite of instruments, including multi-channel seismic data, ocean-bottom seismometers, and light detection and ranging, or lidar, to precisely map the deformation within the various sediment layers in and around the sea’s bottom.

“The location of the fault in the eastern Salton Sea has made imaging it difficult and there is no associated small seismic events, which is why the fault was not detected earlier,” explained Scripps geologist Neal Driscoll.

Recent studies have revealed that the region has experienced magnitude-7 earthquakes roughly every 175 to 200 years for the last thousand years. A major rupture on the southern portion of the San Andreas Fault has not occurred in the last 300 years.

Story Date: October 22, 2016