Little quakes rumble through Mammoth Lakes area
A cluster of tiny earthquakes has been rumbling through the Mammoth Lakes area, with two of magnitude 3.0 and 3.3 striking early this morning.
The magnitude-3.3 earthquake occurred around 1:13 a.m. and the 3.0 around 7:11 a.m. about 10 miles southeast of town, according to a monitoring system run by the U.S. Geological Survey and UC Berkeley. For the last week, more than 15 other earthquakes have shaken the area, ranging in magnitude from 0.2 to 1.9.
"It's not a big deal," said Caltech seismologist Kate Hutton. "That's another swarm area."
The area experienced a "great deal" of seismic activity in the 1980s but recently quieted down, Hutton said.
"Like the rest of the seismic activity, it comes and goes," she said. "It's unpredictable."
No damage has been reported in the area, said Tom Heller, duty chief at the Mammoth Lakes Fire Department.
"A 3.0 doesn't even begin to creak the house, so we don't know it's happening," he said this morning. "We had a little wind overnight and people probably wouldn't differentiate a 3.0 earthquake and the wind blowing."
-- Jia-Rui Chong
