4.1 magnitude earthquake strikes Los Angeles region

August 30, 2012 – CALIFORNIA - The 4.1 earthquake that jolted Yorba Linda on Wednesday afternoon appears to be an aftershock of the cluster of quakes that hit the region earlier this month, seismologists said. The jolted area included southeastern Los Angeles County, Orange County and the Inland Empire. The quake occurred in about the same location of an earthquake doublet, two 4.5 quakes that occurred on Aug. 7 at 11:23 p.m. and Aug. 8 at 9:33 a.m. The area was also hit by a 4.0 quake on June 14. Wednesday’s quake, which hit at 1:31 p.m., was located near the center point of the magnitude-5.5 Chino Hills earthquake that reverberated through the Los Angeles Basin in the summer of 2008, U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Lucy Jones told The Times. Wednesday’s quake appeared to be located in the “Yorba Linda trend,” a seismic area identified by Caltech geophysicist Egill Hauksson in 1990, that might be a buried fault. Many who felt the quake said it was relatively mild. At Vinjon’s Kennel in Yorba Linda, the quake hit just as Carisa Feeney, 22, was giving a bath to a year-and-a-half-old boxer mix. When the quake delivered its single strong jolt, the dog leaped up in the tub –- and both quickly ran outside. “I’m pretty much covered in water,” Feeney said. Nancy Ferguson, who owns SGO Designer Glass in Old Town Yorba Linda, said, “We had a big jolt, just for a few seconds, then everything just kind of swayed.” Ferguson, who has hundreds of pieces of glass on display in her store, said she holds her breath every time there’s an earthquake. “But nothing fell over today, so we’re feeling pretty lucky,” she said. It is unlikely that the earthquake swarm that has hit Imperial County with hundreds of quakes since the weekend is related to Wednesday’s quake in Yorba Linda, Jones said. –LA Times

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