Earthquakes Throughout California on Wednesday Not Connected, Experts Say

By Alexander Nguyen (Patch Staff)

There is no reason to think the several small earthquakes recorded in Northern California and the Inland Empire on Wednesday morning were connected, earthquake experts said in remarks reported Thursday.

Even the three quakes in Riverside County were too far apart to all be linked, the Los Angeles Times reported. The first two, a magnitude-3.7 and -2.7 that struck shortly after midnight, both were traced back to the San Jacinto fault zone. But the third temblor, a magnitude-3.1 near Corona at 9:11 a.m., occurred in a different fault zone.

Scientists are still studying the details of the third earthquake, which occurred near the Elsinore and Whittier faults, Caltech seismologist Jennifer Andrews told The Times. As for the first two, it seemed like business as usual for the San Jacinto fault zone, a major network of faults in Southern California.

In the East Bay, three small earthquakes shook the Concord area Wednesday morning following a series of quakes in the same area Sunday.

The most recent quake was reported at 7:35 a.m. with a magnitude of 2.6 following a 3.5-magnitude quake about three minutes earlier. The first quake was a 3.2-magnitude temblor at 7:02 a.m.

Multiple quakes hit in the same area on Sunday, including a 3.6-magnitude temblor that hit at 3:13 p.m.

— City News Service and Bay City News Service contributed to this article; Photo via Wiki Commons