A number of earthquakes were reported off the shore of Southern California on June 5.
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) measured a 4.3 magnitude quake near San Clemente Island, 67 miles southwest of Huntington Beach at 3:47 a.m. local time.
There were no reports of damage or injuries.
San Clemente is the southernmost of the Channel Islands and owned by the U.S. Navy. Seismic activity is not unusual in the area, according to the
Associated Press.
Nearly four hours later, a second 4.3 magnitude quake was measured off the south end of San Clemente Island.
The USGS confirmed the second tremor at 7:32 a.m. and said that it occurred in the same area as the first quake that hit at 3:47 a.m.
The second tremor also did not see any immediate reports of damage or injury.
The USGS
Did You Feel It website received at least three citizen reports from the area between Simi Valley in northern Ventura County and Rialto in eastern San Bernardino County.
There were further reports of tremors from the Orange County cities of Aliso Viejo, Laguna Niguel, Laguna Beach, Irvine, Costa Mesa, and Mission Viejo according to
CBSLA. LA County’s coastal communities like San Pedro and Rancho Palos Verdes also reported feeling the quake.
The San Clemente Island quakes came less than a week after a hundreds of tremors hit the San Bernardino community of Glen Avon, nearly 100 miles away.
Dr. Lucy Jones, seismologist and chief scientist at the Dr. Lucy Jones Center for Science & Society, believes that anyone who felt the recent Glen Avon earthquake swarm between May 25 and June 3 are unlikely to have felt the latest quakes.
“Two magnitude fours off San Clemente Island ... tens of times more energy released in these two than in the hundreds in Glen Avon,” Jones said on
Twitter. “Nobody who felt Glen Avon would feel these and vice versa. Southern California (SoCal) is earthquake country.”
Jones said that more earthquakes are being detected now thanks to the installation of more seismic stations.
“We are seeing more small quakes in SoCal because we put in more seismic stations to do earthquake early warning,” Jones said on
Twitter. “All earthquakes follow a distribution where small ones are much more common than bigger ones. Each unit of magnitude smaller means 10 times more quakes.”
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
