""There's no steady spattering of earthquakes in California," Hough told SFGATE. "We get clusters. We get swarms.""
""People have been trying to beat the odds for 100 years, looking for some pattern that suggests that a big earthquake is coming, and it just isn't a winning game," Hough said."
""People sometimes think the little earthquakes are a safety valve, and it doesn't work like that," she said. "Earthquakes do always increase the odds of other earthquakes because they perturb the crust around them.""
Northern California experienced a recent burst of small earthquakes, including about 30 minor quakes near The Geysers geothermal field and a separate series that produced a magnitude 4.0 in Sonoma County. Earthquake activity in California often occurs in clusters and swarms rather than as a steady, scattered pattern. The Geysers area is a known area of induced earthquakes often linked to underground fluid movement from geothermal operations. Statewide seismicity this year has been relatively quiet, with only scattered magnitude-4 events. Periods of lower activity do not reduce long-term risk. Reliable patterns for predicting major quakes have not been found, and small quakes do not prevent larger ones; they can increase the odds of subsequent events by perturbing the crust.
Read at SFGATE
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