What’s with all the earthquakes? California’s latest rattles Bay Area from beneath the ocean

Out with 2020, in with 2021. And the quakes go on in California.

The Bay Area was shook by a magnitude 3.6 earthquake early Thursday, the fourth quake of at least a 3 magnitude in a week in Northern California.

On Saturday, Soledad in Monterey County saw a magnitude 4.3 quake at 6:42 a.m., and Ridgecrest in Kern County received a magnitude 3.4 temblor two hours before.

A leading California seismologist said the quakes are not particularly alarming.

“This is just normal activity,” said Lind Gee, a geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park. “That’s good to hear, right?”

The Bay Area quake, recorded 9 miles below the ocean off the shore of Muir Beach north of San Francisco, followed two earlier quakes this week.

Late Wednesday, a 3.6-magnitude quake was recorded west of Cobb in Lake County. And early Sunday, a 3.8 quake was felt east of Willows, in Glenn County. The Willows earthquake was the most powerful on the floor of the Sacramento Valley since 1968.

By mid-morning Thursday, more than 5,200 Northern Californians had reported feeling Thursday’s quake to the Geological Survey, including some from the Sacramento area.

On the morning of New Year’s Eve, many took to social media to discuss the earthquakes. Christine Pelosi, a Democratic strategist and daughter of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, tweeted that “2020 can’t leave without one more jolt!”

Gee, a member of the California Integrated Seismic Network, said the latest earthquake sparked a good deal of attention because of its proximity to San Francisco. She added that it’s possible residents were already on edge because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“People are particularly sensitive because of the type of year it’s been,” she said.

Another prominent California seismologist, Dr. Lucy Jones, said the quakes are part of the large evolution of the earth, playing out on a timescale well beyond the human timescale, but not part of something happening to us.

“Many people assume every quake has some meaning,” she wrote on Twitter on Thursday. “Most quakes don’t have a short-term meaning. They’re part of the long-term deformation but the timing is random. But randomness makes us uncomfortable so we don’t want to believe that.”

This story was originally published December 31, 2020 at 10:38 AM.