California has been experiencing major earthquakes because it lies on San Andreas Fault but little did the Californians know that there is a hidden fault line that lies on the Salton Sea.
Salton Trough Fault Lies Parallel To San Andreas
Southern Califronia experienced series of small earthquakes with a total of 143 last week and scientists are determined to find out why.
Even if Valerie Sahakian, researcher at U.S. Geological Survey and lead author of the study tried to deny the newly found fault can be a trigger to San Andreas, there are other teams that are willing to unveil the secret cause of earthquakes last week.
Recently, scientists have discovered that an undiscovered fault line that is located on Salton Sea in California caused the 200 small earthquakes last week that can trigger a massive earthquake on San Andreas Fault, in a report on Raw Story.
Scripps Institute of Oceonography at UC San Diego and the Nevada Seismological Laboratory at the University of Nevada Reno are the two teams that are responsible for telling the whole world the latest discovery.
"The location of the fault in the eastern Salton Sea has made imaging it difficult and there is no associated small seismic events, which is why the fault was not detected earlier," said Scripps geologist Neal Driscoll, also co-author and lead principal investigator of the study.
The biggest quake last week reached a 4.3 magnitude.
Scientists Are Still Studying The Connection Between The Two Faults
"Based on the deformation patterns, this new fault has accommodated some of the strain from the larger San Andreas system, so without having a record of past earthquakes from this new fault, it's really difficult to determine whether this fault interacts with the southern San Andreas Fault at depth or in time," explained Nevada State seismologist Graham Kent. He is also a co-author of the study and former researcher on Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
The group want to reduce any hazard that will come that is why they want to conduct further studies on the connection between the two fault lines, according to SF Gate.
