Jean Fuller is taking her little dog Oillie for what’s hopefully a relaxing walk through downtown Ojai. They’re both a nervous still in the wake of Sunday afternoon’s magnitude 5.1 earthquake. Fuller was in the stairwell of her two story condo when it hit.
"Thing were swaying, and frightening," said Fuller. "Our TV flew off, and landed on the ground, and all the books fell out of our bookshelves."
Ventura County has been rattled by an earthquake swarm. Since the magnitude 5.1 quake at 2:41 Sunday afternoon, there have been more than 50 smaller quakes, and counting. The epicenter of the 5.1 quake was about four miles southeast of Ojai, with many of the others in the same general area. Seismologists have some ideas about the fault which might be responsible.
"A minor fault...looking back, there's almost no historical seismicity on that fault," said Dr. Ralph Archuleta, who is a longtime UC Santa Barbara seismologist.
The researcher talks about what we know about the faults in the area.
"California has lots of faults, and many are capable of producing a magnitude 5...it's sort of garden variety...what you would expect once a year in Southern California," he said.
Could the magnitude 5.1 quake be a precursor of a bigger quake to come?
"Anytime you have a 5, there's a 5% chance that it will be followed by a larger one. Not when it might occur. But that's a one in 20 chance," said Archuleta.
There was an earthquake swarm near Ojai 18 months ago, but Archuleta says they were centered in a different area.
The quakes bring up the question of earthquake prediction. Archuleta says while we don’t have that ability, we are learning more about which faults could potentially be active. He says GPS monitoring allows ultra precise monitoring of earthquake fault movement.
Fortunately, no one was hurt as a result of the Sunday’s 5.1 quake. There was minor damage. While most of the aftershocks are too small to be felt, enough of them are popping up that they’ve left some Ojai Valley residents on edge.
