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| Southern California Earthquakes | ||||||
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| Chronological Earthquake Index > | ||||||
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San Jacinto Fault (Terwilliger Valley) Earthquake | ||||
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TIME March 25, 1937 / 8:49 am, PST LOCATION 33° 24.5' N, 116° 16' W 32 km (20 miles) south of Indio about 96 km (60 miles) northeast of San Diego MAGNITUDE ML6.0 TYPE OF FAULTING probably right-lateral strike-slip
Also known as the Terwilliger Valley Earthquake -- actually a misnomer,
since a more accurate recent determination of its epicenter has it
located almost 30 km (19 miles) ESE of Terwilliger Valley -- this quake
caused very little damage, since the epicentral region was sparsely
populated in 1937 (and, even today, is still somewhat remote). A few
chimneys were damaged, some plaster was cracked, and a few windows were
broken at structures located (relatively) near the epicenter. It was
recognized at the time, however, that the quake could have easily caused
the kind of damage seen in Santa
Barbara in 1925 or in Long Beach in
1933, had it been located in a densely populated area, being
nearly the same magnitude as those destructive quakes. This
earthquake occurred just after the advent of modern seismology, and
was one of the first for which both an accurate epicentral location
and a numerical magnitude value (using Charles Richter's newly
developed system) were determined -- previously,
earthquake "size" was measured by intensity. Intensity is still
a valuable tool for the study of earthquakes, but it does not always
accurately reflect the true energy-release of an event.
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