Tiny Earthquakes Happen Every Few Minutes In Southern California, Study Finds
A new catalog of Southern California earthquakes is 10 times larger than its predecessor list. The details of frequent, small quakes help scientists study what triggers large, destructive ones.
by Rebecca Hersher
Apr 18, 2019
3 minutes
Detecting very small earthquakes is notoriously difficult. The rumbling of the ocean, a passing car or even the wind can feel a lot like a minor quake to the sensors that blanket seismically active parts of the U.S.
That's a problem for scientists who rely on data about all the earthquakes in a region to study what triggers the biggest, most destructive ones.
Now, a team of scientists says it has found a way to accurately detect tiny earthquakes, in the journal
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