When you really investigate the potential for earthquakes in Arizona you'll find it's not as unlikely as you might think. If you look at earthquake maps you'll see that Arizona has a lot fault lines, with the strongest concentration being in the Northwest, Southwest and Central parts of the state. The Arizona Nevada border, right around where the Colorado Plateau ends, is where the most significant Arizona fault lines are located. These fault lines, the Toroweap, Hurricane, and Grand Wash faults, feed through the rest of the Northern portion of our state.
Courtesy of AEIC
Most of the epicenters have fallen in the North Central part of state, around the Arizona Nevada border. One of the biggest magnitude epicenters fell right around Tucson.
Courtesy of AEIC
Earthquakes have been recorded in Arizona since the mid 1800's, but most have been pretty insignificant (around a 2. magnitude) The most recently recorded Arizona earthquake I could find information on occurred at the Arizona Utah border on April 5. It was only a 1.8 magnitude, so no one would have even noticed that it occurred. The strongest earthquake to strike Arizona occurred July 1959 and was recorded as a 5.6 magnitude. That quake rattled homes, knocking loose bricks on chimneys and breaking windows. 1989 saw the most seismic activity in Arizona, with just under 200 events including quakes and aftershocks occurring.
Recently there's been a lot of speculation about when the next big earthquake will hit California, but I'm wondering when Arizona will have it's next significant quake. The Arizona Nevada border has been seeing a lot of minor seismic activity since the beginning of the year. One wonders if this is a sign of things to come!
8 comments:
That's exactly how many residents in the Midwest were awakened this morning, startled by a 5.2 earthquake based in Southern Illinois.
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Julie
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Earthquakes? What a tragic history.
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Ive heard this, but happy to finally have a decent understanding of them. Thanks for sharing.
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Great report well worth the read.
Thanks for sharing this superb information.
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Hope I can get more info
Great blog, I really enjoyed this post.
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Valorie ~ Nice article. I just want to add the big earthquake felt in Cochise County on May 3, 1887. While the epicenter was in northeast Mexico, the quake caused major destruction in southeast Arizona (then a Territory). Although the Richter Scale was not developed until 1935, a U of A geologist estimated that this quake would have been 8.1. It is common - but as far as I can tell undocumented - knowledge that prior to the quake the San Pedro River was a mile wide. Today, it is but a small river as the majority of it now runs underground. I'd love to hear if anyone has documentation on that. There's a great article about the effects of the quake at http://www.palominas.com/history01.htm#The
Enjoy!
Earthquake is one of the terrible disaster in Arizona. So I think they need to build houses which is designed for earth quake.
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