A magnitude-6.5 quake struck a remote part of Nevada today (May 15, 2020), but was felt in the San Francisco Bay area, Bakersfield, and Las Vegas. Based on its aftershocks and focal mechanism, the event probably struck on an unnamed left-lateral fault. Credit: Temblor
Magnitude-6.5 earthquake rattles Nevada and California
By Alka Tripathy-Lang
May 15, 2020
On May 15, 2020, at 4:03 a.m. local time, the desert area west of Tonopah, Nev., was rattled awake by a widely felt magnitude-6.5 earthquake. Nucleating at a depth of 1.7 miles (2.8 kilometers), this shallow temblor occurred on a nearly vertical fault surface where no matter which side of the fault you’re on, the other side moved to the left. Called a left-lateral strike-slip fault, it is similar to the fault that ruptured during the magnitude-6.4 Ridgecrest foreshock that struck approximately 170 miles (270 kilometers) to the south less than a year ago.
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