The Bay Area earthquake swarm continued Tuesday afternoon with another not-insignificant temblor just south of the Bay Area, centered in a remote area near Hollister.
This quake hit at 12:42 p.m., 10 miles south-southeast of Tres Pinos in San Benito County, near Hollister. As the USGS reports, moderate shaking was recorded in Salinas and Soledad, but areas around Santa Cruz and San Jose felt only weak to light shaking.
Per the Chronicle, and unlike Monday night's earthquake centered near Pleasant Hill, this one was located on the San Andreas Fault. And this was the 10th earthquake above 4.0M to strike in the area in the last 20 years.
Reinforcing the idea that seismologists are still kind of in the dark when it comes to the connections between the many fault lines that cut through the Bay Area, scientists are apparently intrigued by how widely felt the 4.5M quake was on Monday — because, per the Chron, "they hope the fact that it was so widely felt can help them learn more about Bay Area’s network of faults."
Two local earthquakes over 4.0 in the 30th anniversary week of Loma Prieta is just way, way too many.
Also, the Hollister quake had a 2.6M aftershock at 12:55 p.m., and a 2.7M foreshock in the same vicinity at 3:19 a.m. this morning.
Related: New Study Finds Hayward Fault Connected To Second Fault, Potentially Making An Earthquake Much Worse