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WEST RENO, NEVADA, EARTHQUAKE SEQUENCE

Summary of activity, 1 May, 2008
John G. Anderson

Figures 1-4 show the activity rates in the Mogul-Somerset earthquake swarm since April 24. The figures show cumulative numbers of earthquakes with magnitudes over 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, and 2.5, as assigned by the Nevada Seismological Laboratory. The magnitudes are preliminary, and not reviewed in most cases.

The sharp increase in rates of earthquakes was initiated by the magnitude 4.1 and 4.2 earthquakes at 3:47 PM and 3:55 PM PDT, respectively, on April 24. Since that time, there has been a decrease in the overall rate of activity. Figure 1 suggests that at the magnitude 1.0 level, the sequence is maintaining at a steady rate of roughly 20 events per day. At higher magnitudes, there is some hint that the sequence might be slowing down slightly, or at least not accelerating.

While this trend is in the desired direction, the sequence has shown similar slowdowns in the past, only to accelerate again later on. We emphasize that neither larger earthquakes, nor the end of this earthquake swarm, can be predicted.

The occurrence of additional large earthquakes in the Mogul-Somerset area cannot be predicted or forecast. Nevada citizens are urged to always be prepared for strong ground shaking from earthquakes at anytime; Nevada is the third most active state for earthquake activity in the United States and large earthquakes may occur anywhere in the State. For information on earthquake preparedness visit the Nevada Seismological web site at http://www.seismo.unr.edu.


Figure 1.

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Figure 4.