Admit it. When a 4.4 magnitude earthquake rocked Los Angeles Monday morning, at least part of you wondered if that SoCal seismic activity might have an impact on us NorCal folks. Rest easy! According to at least one seismologist, the LA quake won't have any shaky results for those in the Bay Area.
David Oppenheimer, a seismologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, tells KCBS that “what happens in Southern California really doesn’t impact the state of stress in Northern California."
According to Oppenheimer, while large quakes relieve stress on global fault lines, they only do so locally. So while you might see a big quake on a fault line that runs all along the state, that doesn't mean you can expect activity at multiple points along that fault line.
Of course, that doesn't mean that we can't have a completely unrelated earthquake at any time! So let the LA quake be a solid reminder to make an emergency plan.
