Most local news outlets are reporting about last night's 4.7 magnitude one mile east of Lennox, CA --- in South Los Angeles, near Hawthorne.
The Los Angeles Times is focusing on the location of the quake -- near the Newport-Inglewood fault. Geophycists from the U.S. Geological Survey haven't seen a large quake like that since the 1933 Long Beach quake. I guess they will be looking at this fault more closely from here on.
Okay, the non-boring stuff:
Turns out that a couple of people told me that their pets were acting a bit strange before the quake hit. Not only that but the weather was unseasonably warm in Los Angeles over the past couple of days. Coincidence or does this shed a bit of truth to "myths" of earthquake prediction?
ANIMALS PREDICTING QUAKES
There has been some research done on unusual animal behavior before a quake hits (you can read more about this here). China seems to really take strange animal behavior more seriously than we do here in the US since a few of their quakes were preceded by days of endless dog barking and birds flying like crazy.
Personatelly, I own a gekco, but he wasn't acting any more strange than the usual. Also, I don't recall hearing any neighborhood dogs barking either. So, can it be that some animals are more keen than others at sensing seismic vibrations or certain frequencies? Hmmm....
Comments are open for you to tell me of any strange animal behavior from your pets before last night's quake.
WEATHER PATTERNS TO PREDICT QUAKES
So yes, the weather was a bit warm these past few days in Los Angeles. However, we're not unfamiliar with heat waves in this region, but there was a news report back in January about Geologists and Metereologists teaming up to figure out the connection between quakes and weather patterns (read it here).
It seems more clear to me that those "myths" that scientist have disregarded for years could actually help in the prediction of quakes. Still, you can't really say that just because a dog is barking strangely that a quake will hit in the next minute, or if we're having a very hot day in winter that a quake will hit that week.
You can read more about earthquake prediction in this useful Wikipedia article.
THE BIG ONE
What's next after last night's Lennox quake? Well, the Big One hasn't hit yet. Geophysicists are predicting that the Big One will take place along the San Andreas fault, at the Salton Sea. The quake yesterday could be just a reminder of what's to come and to shake us a bit, literarily. We tend to be a very optimistic society where we believe we will always be safe, the reality if that quakes do kill people and unless we begin to take the force of Mother Nature more seriously we will always be scared instead of prepared.