TONOPAH, Nevada, May 15, 2020 (Gephardt Daily) — A 6.5 magnitude quake rocked the California-Nevada border Friday morning, striking in a sparsely populated area 230 miles northwest of Las Vegas, 35 miles west of the small town of Tonopah.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the quake hit at 4:03 a.m. local time at a depth of 4.7 miles and has been followed by dozens of aftershocks, one of which measured 5.1 in magnitude.
Thousands of people reported feeling the quake although there have been no reports of injuries.
Road crew are reporting significant damage to U.S. Highway 95 saying parts of the highway are impassable.
The USGS issued the following ‘Tectonic Summary’ Friday morning:
The May 15, 2020 M 6.5 earthquake 56 km west of Tonopah, Nevada, occurred as the result of strike slip faulting in the shallow crust of the North America plate. Preliminary focal mechanism solutions for the event, which describe the style of faulting in an earthquake, indicate slip likely occurred on a steeply dipping fault striking either east-west (left-lateral) or north-south (right-lateral). This earthquake occurred within the Walker Lane, an active zone of seismicity roughly aligned with the California-Nevada border. Tectonically, the Walker Lane accommodates up to 25% of the North America:Pacific Plate motion, with the remainder mostly accommodated on the San Andreas fault system.
About two dozen M5+ earthquakes have occurred within 100 km of this event over the past 50 years, mostly to the west and south. Two M6+ events have occurred over the same region in the past century – a M 6.5 earthquake 40 km to the northwest in January 1934, and a M 6.8 event 50 km to the north in December 1932. Both of these earthquakes caused severe local shaking (MMI VIII); the 1932 earthquake is documented to have caused damage in the sparsely populated surrounding region. As of 12pm UTC, 6 M4+ aftershocks have occurred since the M 6.5 earthquake, extending over a region about 30 km to the west of the main shock.
Gephardt Daily will update the story as more information becomes available.
