M4.4 Earthquake near Los Angeles, CA March 17, 2014
(Updated 10:45 PDT 3/17/2014)
A moderate earthquake occurred this morning at 0625 am PDT. It was centered at a location 9 km NNW of Westwood, CA, where the University of California at Los Angeles is located. A screenshot from the Open Hazards Hazard Viewer is shown below:
Drawing a circle around the center of Los Angeles, we find that there is a significant probability of an M>5 event within the circle during the next year (45%), and a probability of a larger event M>6 in the region (29%) within the next 3 years. A table of forecast probabilities is shown below.
We can also use the Hazard Viewer to compute the chance of a M>5 earthquake occurring during the next 1 year in the circle of radius 100 km. This probability is shown for the past 5 years as the blue curve below. The figure shows that the chance of a significant earthquake has generally been decreasing of late. It hit a high of nearly 80% following the April 4, 2010 El Major-Cucapah (N Baja Mexico) earthquake, and has since fallen to about 45% as noted above.
About OpenHazards Bloggers
Steven Ward is a Research Geophysicist at the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, UC Santa Cruz. He specializes in the quantification and simulation of natural hazards. Read Steve's blog.
John Rundle is a Distinguished Professor of Physics and Geology at UC Davis and the Executive Director of the APEC Collaboration for Earthquake Simulations. He chaired the Board of Advisors for the Southern California Earthquake Center from 1994 to 1996. Read John's blog.