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If you felt the ground move shortly before 10 a.m. Sunday, you weren't imagining things. An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 4.1 was recorded near Palomar Mountain. That's around the Elsinore fault line.
The epicenter was about 17 miles southeast of Temecula and there were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.
Seismologist Lucy Jones promptly tweeted the details, and said quakes happen in the same part of the fault about once a year. So, Jones says, "this isn't an everyday occurrence but it isn't unusual."
We just had a small M4.0 quake near Mt. Palomar and the Elsinore fault. Do we think it is on the Elsinore fault? And what does that mean? Read on... https://t.co/3WUrl7LhmU
— Dr. Lucy Jones (@DrLucyJones) January 30, 2022
The United States Geological Survey is asking anyone who felt the quake to report what it was like on their website.
As of midday Sunday more than 5,000 people had responded.
As always, any earthquake is a reminder to get ready for an inevitable much larger quake here in Southern California.
We don't want to scare you, but the Big One is coming. We don't know when, but we know it'll be at least 44 times stronger than Northridge and 11 times stronger than the Ridgecrest quakes in 2019. To help you get prepared, we've compiled a handy reading list
