Don't know about anyone else but my gut feeling on these earthquakes is I believe we here in Cali are in for one major quake!
My uneducated guess would be the Mammoth mountain area or Lone Pine region, think I'll go bolt down my antique hutch!
Jim_bo
Lone Pine has some very interesting quake history. Somewhere on my big drive I've got a series of letters published to a San Fran Newspaper regarding a huge quake in the area. Lone Pine itself is a neat little town the gateway to Mt Whitney, tallest peak in the lower 48. Which leads to another interesting bit of trivia. In the lower 48 states the highest mountain and the lowest elevation are approx 90 miles apart. Mt. Whitney being the highest and Death Valley being the lowest.
found it here we go...
Lone Pine, CA, Earthquake, Mar 1872
Colorado Chieftain Pueblo Colorado 1872-04-04
EARTHQUAKE DAMAGE.
Much damage was done by earthquake shocks in California and Nevada on the 26th. Camp Independence, California, was completely ruined; the court house was destroyed, and there was not a single adobe or brick building standing from Bishop Creek to Independence. MRS. WEST, residing near Independence, was severely injured. Her child was killed. Stage passengers report that several fissures, miles in length and fifty to two hundred feet wide and twenty feet deep, opened along the eastern base of the Sierra Nevada. Near Big Pine Camp, and at other places in the vicinity, the ground was heaved up in great ridges. Large springs had stopped running, and others had broken out. Heavy snow-slides occurred in the Sierra, and large rocks rolled down the mountain sides, blocking up the stage road. The shocks lasted an interval from 2:20 to 6:30 a.m._Advices received at San Francisco from the volcanic country north of the Majave River, show that the earthquake on the 26th was felt with terrific force there. At Lone Pine twenty-three people were killed, and thirty wounded. Shocks were felt for thirty hours. Fifty houses were demolished, and the town is in ruins.
Transcriber's Note: This earthquake had an estimated reading of 7.8 to 8.0 on the now used Richter scale. This would be equal to the Great San Francisco Earthquake. At least 27 people died in Lone Pine.
GENERAL NEWS.
San Francisco, March 30. -- Dispatches from volcanic districts in Iayo County, four hundred miles southeast from San Francisco, gives additional details of the earthquake disaster of Tuesday last. The shocks continue, though decreased in violence. It is remarkable that only the single slight shock of Tuesday was felt in central and southern California. Cerro Gordo was heavily damaged, and some buildings were thrown down, but only one man was killed. Lone Pine appears to have been directly over the center of the disturbance. The first shock is described as like a park of artillery fired directly beneath the town. The scene beggars description. Screams and groans rent the air in all directions. Nearly the whole populace was buried beneath its ruins. Cries for help and screams of pain from the wounded filled the air, while from the ruins, those who escaped were calling for help. The first shock was followed in quick succession by three others. Over three hundred distinct shocks were felt between 2:30 o'clock and sunrise. In fact the earth was in a constant shake and tremble for over three hours. A chasm was opened extending 85 miles down the valley, and ranging from three inches to forty feet in width. Rocks were torn from their places and rolled down into the valley. Everywhere through the valley are seen evidences of the terrible convulsions of nature.
At Swansea, COL. TREGALTOS, of the smelting works, was killed. There is much desolation among the inhabitants._A Lone Pine dispatch today, from Visalia, says that several shocks were felt in that city last night, and are still coming from the southeast. Persons anticipate the finding of immense chasms in the mountains east of us, as soon as the snow disappears enough to admit of investigation. Rumors of a volcano in active operation being seen from the summit of Greenhood Mountain, sixty miles southeast of Visalia, are in circulation, but are donsidered at least as dubious. Indians in the vicinity have all left, fearing a recurrence of a general convulsion of nature, which according to tradition, occurred there some hundred years ago, and created what is now known as Owen's River Valley, but what was before a chain of mountains. The section affected by the earthquake is sparsely inhabited, mainly by the people working silver bearing lead mines.
San Francisco, April 1. -- Additional advices from Inyo County, place the number of killed by the earthquake on Tuesday, at thirty, and one hundred wounded. In Desert county, stretching from Owen's Lake to the Mexican line, are craters innumerable of volcanoes not long extinct. Several mud volcanoes are still active. It is supposed some of these old volcanos may be in eruption again. A gentleman from Independence asserts that lava and ashes from a volcano are distinctly seen southward from that place, and word has been brought that lava was seen flowing down the mountain. The report is not authenticated. The shocks continued decreasing in force up to Thursday morning, when over one thousand had been counted. At Tibbet's rancho, fifteen miles above Independence, forty acres of ground sunk below the surface of the surrounding country. Big Owen's Lake has risen four feet since the first shock. Owen's River ran over the banks, depositing shoals of fish on the shore. For a distance of four or five miles through Lone Pine, the earth is cracked, one side remaining stationary while the other sand sever or eight feet, leaving a wall of earth extending over three miles in length, which was formerly a level plain. Innumerable cracks were made throughout the valley, Kern and Owen's Rivers turned and run up stream for several minutes, leaving their beds dry, and finally returned with largely increased velocity. No parallel to this earthquake since 1812, when the missions of San Juan Capistrano and La Purissima in Southern California, were destroyed.
