Watch three decades of earthquakes rattle California in this colorful new video
California is no stranger to earthquakes big and small — and a new video based on decades of data makes that clear.
The video captures 30 years of seismic activity, from the twin 6.4- and 7.1-magnitude earthquakes that hit Ridgecrest earlier this month, all the way back to the deadly 6.9-magnitude Loma Prieta earthquake that rattled the San Francisco Bay Area in 1989.
But it’s not just the big ones: The video also catalogs littler quakes, giving viewers a sense of the constant seismological activity going on under foot.
“This animation covers a period of 30 years to put the Ridgecrest earthquakes in context and show how they compare with other recent, noteworthy earthquakes,” the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center wrote in a description of the video, which was published on YouTube July 21.
Color in the video corresponds to the depth of the quake, with red signifying seismic activity closest to the surface, yellow five miles deep, light blue 10 miles, dark blue 20 miles and purple 40 miles underground, according to the legend on the map in the video. The size of the circle that represents each quake shows its magnitude, with the bigger quakes getting larger circles.
The colorful representation in the video is based on a trove of U.S. Geological Survey data, according to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.
Utah, Arizona and Nevada quakes are also included in the video, though each of those states appears to have far fewer quakes — particularly of large magnitude.
The video description also included details about some of the memorable quakes shown in the 97-second video. The 7.2-magnitude Cape Mendocino earthquake in April 1992, for example, triggered a small tsunami, the center wrote.
“While California produces many earthquakes, most are too small, too far from the ocean, and/or move the earth in such a way that they are unlikely to produce tsunamis, though there are exceptions,” the Tsunami Warning Center wrote in its video description.
The next notable quake the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center highlighted was the 7.3-magnitude Landers quake in June 1992, and then the deadly 6.7-magnitude Northridge quake that rattled Los Angeles in 1994.
The Hector Mine quake came in 1999 and measured 7.1 on the Richter scale. That was followed by 2003’s 6.6-magnitude San Simeon earthquake. A 2010 Baja California earthquake in Mexico measured 7.2 magnitude, and the 6.0-magnitude South Napa quake struck in 2014.
Unfortunately for quake-weary Californians, the video stops around the time of the Ridgecrest quakes — and it can’t predict future seismic activity.
This story was originally published July 25, 2019 at 1:43 PM with the headline "Watch three decades of earthquakes rattle California in this colorful new video."
