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Reno’s Swarm of Quakes Defies The Odds

May 3, 2008

Residents of the Reno suburb of Mogul are so shaken by an intense swarm of earthquakes over the past two months that some have taken to sleeping outside in campers and trucks.

Since an April 25 temblor knocked pictures off the walls and broke the family crystal, Phil Oberlander has spent nights in his Cuddy Cabin boat parked in front of the house.

“I was in a car wreck that was less violent than the earthquake,” Oberlander said. “When you get a hundred of them in one day, you start to feel like you are in Berlin in 1944.”

Since Feb. 28, more than 1,000 earthquakes have struck the small community about 2 miles west of Reno. The strongest one, of 4.7 magnitude, hit a week ago, knocking over furniture and cracking walls. Along with California, Nevada is one of the most seismically active states in the country. Nevada experienced magnitude 6 quakes in Verdi, west of Reno, in 1948 and in Reno in 1914.

But scientists say the “Mogul earthquake sequence” is unusual.

“Normally, Nevada and California earthquakes are 5 to 10 kilometers deep, and these here are unusually shallow,” said Rasool Anooshehpoor, research associate professor at the Seismological Laboratory at the University of Nevada. “Hopefully, we can learn and see what causes them, but right now I don’t think we have enough information.”

Scientists are also puzzled over the progression of the swarms - usually, the main shock is followed by a series of smaller quakes that eventually fade out. In the Mogul sequence, smaller temblors led to a large one, Anooshehpoor said.

On April 25, for example, the area was hit by a magnitude 3.3 quake, followed by a 4.7 and at least 30 smaller ones. Since then, the scientists have counted more than 600 quakes.

“It is certainly intriguing, and it will be interesting to see when all this comes together,” said David Hill, a veteran seismologist at the U.S. Geological Survey. “We see a lot of sequences like this in volcanic areas, where they are associated with stresses as the magna moves around.”

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