Earthquake Swarm Continues, Experts Predict a Couple More Weeks of Shakers

San Ramon’s recent torrent of temblors continued into Monday night, and it’s not likely these earthquakes will stop anytime soon, according to U.S. Geological Survey officials. At 9:33 p.m. Monday, a 2.8-magnitude earthquake struck near San Ramon, according to preliminary USGS data.

Two 2.5-magnitude earthquakes hit the same area a few hours earlier. Those temblors followed on the heels of a 3.6-magnitude earthquake that rattled San Ramon at 4:21 p.m. Monday. Six seconds before that there was a 2.3-magnitude earthquake, which has been downgraded from primarily reports that it was a 3.5-magnitude shaker.

Monday’s 3.6-magnitude earthquake was the largest of 237 temblors that rumbled the area within the last week.

“Most of them are down in the range where they’re not being felt,” said Brad Aagaard, a research geophysicist at USGS. And though USGS received around 1,000 reports of Monday’s 3.6-magnitude earthquake being felt throughout the East Bay, it would have to be nearly double the magnitude to be considered damaging. Aagaard doesn’t believe this quake storm will necessarily produce that.

“We’ve had swarms like this (in this area) in the past and none of them have led to a large, damaging earthquake,” he said.

Yet that doesn’t mean the torrent of temblors is near its end.

“Some of the larger ones have lasted 30-40 days, so we would expect this swarm will likely continue a couple more weeks,” he said.

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By Bay City News

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