California is no stranger to earthquakes, with three active fault lines deep beneath the surface of the Golden State. However, there has been an unprecedented flurry of tremors in the past day which is bound to have many Californians worried. In the past 24 hours alone, there has been a staggering 111 earthquakes which have rumbled beneath California, according to seismic website Earthquake Track.
All of the tremors have been relatively small, most of which have struggled to reach above 2.5 on the Richter scale.
However, Californians are still on high alert after a 6.4 magnitude tremor hit the southern part of the State on July 4.
The earthquake was the strongest California had seen in years – and experts warned at the time that was unlikely to be the end of it and it did not lessen the chances of ‘the Big One’ – a proposed major earthquake which will one day rock the west coast of the USA.
Seismologist Lucy Jones told the LA Times: “This does not make [the Big One] less likely.
“There is about a one in 20 chance that this location will be having an even bigger earthquake in the next few days, that we have not yet seen the biggest earthquake of the sequence.
“Some aftershocks will probably exceed magnitude 5, which means they’ll probably be damaging.”
California is a particularly seismic region of the world, and sits upon the San Andreas Fault, the Hayward Fault and the San Jacinto Fault.
The San Andreas Fault in particular is of huge concern to seismologists, with many claiming it is long overdue a huge shake up.
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The Ring of Fire is the largest and most active fault line in the world, stretching from New Zealand, all around the east coast of Asia, over to Canada and the USA and all the way down to the southern tip of South America and causes more than 90 percent of the world’s earthquakes.
The plates which make up the Ring of Fire are so huge even the slightest shift results in massive tremors, volcano activity and tsunamis.
While some scientists believe a series of smaller tremors could be a sign of the impending ‘Big One’, others are not as convinced.
John Bellini, a geophysicist at the US Geological Survey (USGS), has stated that there is no way to predict a major tremor is coming until it has actually happened.
Mr Bellini has said: “We can’t predict or forecast earthquakes.
“Sometimes before a large earthquake you’ll have a foreshock or two, but we don’t know they’re foreshocks until the big one happens.”
