RIVERSIDE – (INT) – ‘Slow’ earthquakes being detected deep in the San Jacinto Fault could be the forerunners to a large damaging earthquake.

That’s the assessment of scientists at UC Riverside who say the quakes are the result of a spontaneous tectonic tremor in the Anza Gap, a segment of the San Jacinto Fault between Hemet and Anza.

Over the past 200 years, the Anza Gap is the only stretch along the fault line that has not experienced an earthquake of magnitude 5.5 or greater.

“While other regions of the San Jacinto fault give rise to small and moderate earthquakes on a regular basis, the Anza Gap is surprisingly quiet, which raises questions about how it is releasing the stress it accumulates,” Abhijit Ghosh, an assistant professor of earth sciences in said. “For that reason, many experts suspect that this area is ripe to produce a damaging earthquake."

While it is technically not a plate boundary, the San Jacinto Fault accommodates some of the movement that occurs as the North American Plate and the Pacific Plate grind together along the San Andreas Fault.

Story Date: August 23, 2018