Scientists believe a significant earthquake in Southern California this week may have an unexpected cause, yet it has rekindled fears of the ‘Big One’.
Stretching more than 100 miles across Southern California, from the US-Mexico border through San Diego and
Riverside Counties, and up towards Los Angeles, is the little-known Elsinore fault, a branch of the notorious San Andreas fault.Fault monitoring device
Only 15 miles from San Diego County, the Elsinore fault is among the biggest fault zones in Southern California, according to the California Institute of Technology.
Lucy Jones, a seismologist, cautioned that though Elsinore has been among the quietest in recorded history, it is still capable of produce an earthquake with a magnitude of up to 7.8.
