Earthquake rumbles California — 5.8-magnitude temblor strikes near Lone Pine

A strong earthquake Wednesday shook the eastern Sierra, and was widely felt across California, from Sacramento to Los Angeles, according to the U.S. Geological Survey and social media reports.

It was part of a series of temblors in the remote dry lake bed of the Owens Valley that started Monday, according to seismologists.

The largest of the earthquakes, which rumbled across most of the state, struck at 10:40 a.m. Wednesday about 13 miles south-southeast of Lone Pine in Inyo County and registered a magnitude of 5.8, according to revised estimates by the USGS. The epicenter was about 100 miles southeast of Fresno, rumbling across the main spine of the southern Sierra Nevadas, including Mount Whitney. The shaking was centered about 230 miles southeast of Sacramento and about 175 miles north of Los Angeles.

That was followed by several smaller quakes in the lower Owens Valley, the largest of which was 4.4 in magnitude.

Widely, weakly felt in Central California

While its intensity would only be considered moderate by scientists, the shaking ricocheted across the Central Valley and across Southern California, and was felt in Las Vegas. Reports of the earthquake quickly flooded social media with residents in Sacramento, Stockton, Modesto, Merced and Fresno all saying they felt the temblor.

On the USGS’s “Did You Feel It?” webpage for the quake, nearly 9,000 responses were recorded in 45 minutes, with users as far away as the Bay Area, San Luis Obispo and Lake Tahoe chiming in — most who entered responses said they felt weak shaking.

Author Lisa McMann tweeted that she could feel it from the third floor of a building in downtown Sacramento, describing it as “very minor.”

At the epicenter, moderate earthquakes can cause damage to buildings in the vicinity of the epicenter, but there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The quake’s depth was about 2½ miles below the surface — relatively shallow but not uncommon for the fault zone that runs down this high-desert valley nestled between the Sierra and the Inyo Mountains.

Kathleen New, who leads the Lone Pine’s chamber of commerce, told the Sierra Wave she was “really surprised at how long it lasted.” She told the online news site there were no reports of damage but that items had been knocked off shelves at the hardware store next door.

Caltrans officials dispatched crews to check roadways in the remote area but said, “at this time, we have no reports of damage on the state highway system.” A county public information officer told the Sierra Wave they were investigating a rock slide but had no other reports of damage.

Gov. Gavin Newsom mentioned the earthquake at the top of a COVID-19 news conference, and encouraged Californians to download the “My Shake” app to receive early warnings about earthquakes.

Previous Owens Valley earthquakes

Dr. Lucy Jones, Southern California’s most prominent seismologist, said the earthquake Wednesday morning followed a quake that struck the same area two nights ago. In responding to users on Twitter, Jones said, “The M4.6 was a foreshock to this event. We don’t know if an even bigger quake could be coming. Like EVERY quake, there is a 5% chance of something bigger.”

The epicenter of Wednesday’s earthquake is roughly 50 miles north of the Ridgecrest area, where a strong series of quakes struck almost a year ago, beginning July 4. Both earthquakes share the same rift in the Earth’s crust, known as the Owens Valley Fault Zone. It is not connected to the more-famous San Andreas Fault, which is more than 150 miles south of Wednesday’s epicenter.

In 1872, the area had one of California’s largest recorded earthquakes. The Owens Valley Earthquake struck on March 26 and scientists believe its magnitude to be between 7.4 to 7.9, making it “comparable to, if not greater than, those of the great San Andreas fault earthquakes of 1857 and 1906,” according to a 2008 report. The quake created a sudden crustal movement of 15 to 20 vertical feet and leveled the burgeoning outpost of Lone Pine. About one-tenth of the town at the time was known to have been killed by the temblor.