San Fernando Earthquake In the early morning hours of February 9, 1971 a 6.6 earthquake shook Southern California. The earthquake was generated by thrust faulting on the Sierra Madre fault. The quake killed 65 people – most at the Olive View Medical Center and VA Hospital which were both destroyed. The 1971 San Fernando earthquake (also known as the Sylmar earthquake) struck the San Fernando Valley near Sylmar, California at 6:00:55 am PST on February 9, 1971, with a magnitude of 6.6. The epicenter of the quake was located in the San Gabriel Mountains, with numerous nearby Los Angeles communities affected. Comparative elevation studies based on levelings in 1961, 1964, 1965, 1968, and 1969 show that the central Transverse Ranges of southern California sustained major elevation changes prior to the 1971 San Fernando earthquake. Damage from the 1971 quake. It is postulated that the initial event took place at depth on the Sierra Madre fault zone which runs along the base of the San Gabriel Mountains. During the period from 1932 to 1961, the seismicity in this area was relatively low and random. It was the worst recorded quake in the city's history. The epicenter was in the city of San Fernando. San Fernando, California, earthquake of 9 February 1971 Item Preview remove-circle ... San Fernando, California, earthquake of 9 February 1971 by Oakeshott, Gordon B., 1904-Publication date 1975 Topics Earthquakes Publisher Sacramento : California Division of Mines and Geology Collection The Northridge earthquake was the worst earthquake in the Los Angeles basin since the San Fernando earthquake in 1971, which had a 6.7 magnitude. Approximate traces ofsome ofthe faulting activated during this [2]There are various names for this earthquake. The 7:42 a.m. shock was the strongest in the Los Angeles area since the 1971 San Fernando earthquake and was felt as far as San Diego and San Luis Obispo, California and Las Vegas, Nevada. In other words, it is buried. The 1971 San Fernando earthquake, also known as Sylmar earthquake, struck the San Fernando Valley near Sylmar at 6:00:55 a.m. PST on Feb. 9, 1971, with a magnitude of 6.6. The 1971 San Fernando earthquake (also known as the Sylmar earthquake) occurred in the early morning of February 9 in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains in southern California. On this day 40 years ago, a 6.6 magnitude earthquake broke at 6:01 a.m. Sylmar got its name on the event, but the epicenter was deep under the San Gabriel Mountains, in the San Fernando … In 1971, San Fernando earthquake, which was also known as the Sylmar earthquake shook much of southern California in the early morning of February 9, 1971… Pico Canyon is just three miles west of Newhall, which was heavily shaken by both the 1893 and the 1971 quakes. Perched above the densely populated San Fernando Valley, the Lower San Fernando Dam--predecessor to the Los Angeles Dam--holds a large reservoir, 1.6 miles long and as much as 130 feet deep. The front, back and inside cover art of The Doobie Brothers' third album, "The Captain and Me" (Warner Bros. Records Inc., 1973), features the band members and manager Bruce Cohn dressed in period 19th-century costume on the Interstate 5 / State Route 14 freeway bridges that collapsed in the Newhall Pass during the Sylmar (aka San Fernando) earthquake of Feb. 9, 1971. The 1971 San Fernando (a.k.a. The unanticipated thrust earthquake had a moment magnitude of 6.5 or 6.7 (as determined by several independent institutions) and had a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme). These changes are referred chiefly to bench mark Tidal 8, San Pedro, as invariant in elevation; they have been almost uniformly positive and generally episodic. The epicenter of this earthquake was reported to be in the San Gabriel Valley Mountains above the valley. Rupture is postulated to have occurred from a depth of about 15 km to a depth of about 3 km. The San Fernando earthquake (9 February, 1971, M L =6.4, M W =6.6) was initiated at depth (∼13 km below the surface), north of San Fernando and Sylmar, along a plane dipping 40° to northeast and striking 108°, and with fault area of 130 km 2 The fault broke the ground surface north of the San Fernando airport, and caused permanent elevation changes (up to 1.8 m=6 ft) shown in Fig. . FIGURE 1 The San Fernando Earthquake ofFebruary 9, 1971. C.E.M.P. played a major role in the rescue and communications efforts. On February 9th, 1971, magnitude 6.6 earthquake shook the San Fernando Valley in southern California for 12 seconds. The 1971 San Fernando earthquake struck at 6:00:55 a.m. PST on the morning of February 9, 1971. Fourteen persons were killed today, nine of them in hospitals as a minute-long earthquake rolled over Los Angeles and suburbs at 6:02 a.m. DEATH TOLL The largest events in the San Fernando earthquake series, initiated by the main shock at 14h 00m 41.8s UT on February 9, 1971, were chosen for analysis from the first three months of activity, 87 events in all. Burbank, California - Wikipedia In the 1971 San Fernando earthquake, which took place along the western edge of the Sierra Madre Fault, surface ruptures were nearly 12 mi long, including one portion a few miles northwest of Glendale. Sylmar) earthquake (Mw = 6.6) occurred in the early morning hours of February 9. While this event that morning in 1971 will forever be known as The Sylmar Earthquake the actual epicenter was in the San Gabriel Mountains above The Valley. The epicenter in the north San Fernando Valley is in the same area as the 1971 San Fernando earthquake. The map shows thelocation ofthe epicenter ofthe main shock (magnitude 6.6) and ofrepresentative aftershocks (magnitudes greater than 3) through March 1, 1971. To understand the tectonic setting of these two earthquakes, we mapped subsurface geology of the San Fernando Valley down to a depth of ~3 km, using industry oil-well and seismic data. Evidence is presented which suggest that the 1971 San Fernando earthquake may have been a double event that occurred on two separate, subparallel thrust faults. The San Fernando Fault, located 6 mi northwest of Burbank's downtown, caused the 6.6 magnitude 1971 San Fernando earthquake. [1] The earthquake lasted approximately 60 seconds. ... (1971 San Fernando, 1979 Imperial Valley, 1986 North Palm Springs, 1987 Whittier, 1989 Loma Prieta, 1991 Sierra Madre, 1992 Landers, and 1994 Northridge). The Pico Canyon temblor probably originated slightly west of the epicenter of the 1971 earth- quake, and it certainly indicates that moderate earthquake The USGS and seismologists call it the San Fernando earthquake. Sections of … The earthquake occurred along a "blind" thrust fault, close to the San Andreas fault. to the recent San Fernando earthquake, is the Pico Canyon earthquake of 1893. Teleseismic P, SV, and SH waves recorded by the WWSS and Canadian networks from the 1971 San Fernando, California earthquake (M L = 6.6) are modeled in the time domain to determine detailed features of the source as a prelude to studying the near and local field strong-motion observations. The epicenter was located approximately 10 km northeast of LSFD at a focal depth of approximately 9 km. On February 9, 1971 at about 6 o’clock the cities of San Fernando and Sylmar experienced an earthquake that ruptured along the Sierra Madre Fault Zone (Oakeshott, Gordon B). Heaviest death toll was in San Fernando Valley, epicenter of the jolting, rumbling temblor. Note that a blind fault is a fault which does not extend to the surface. • The epicenter of the magnitude 6.6 disastrous earthquake was in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, at the northeastern edge of the Valley. In comparison, both the Loma Prieta (1989) and Northridge (1994) quakes measured “IX Violent” on the Mercalli Scale, two steps below this quake (the Sylmar Earthquake, 1971). Whittier, California Puente Hills Fault San Gabriel Valley Whittier Narrows 1971 San Fernando earthquake That’s because a fault with the provocative name of the Santa Susana thrust exhibited a lot of movement that day, with the result being an earthquake measured at 6.6 at its epicenter. The red star is the epicenter of the earthquake event. Much of the spectacular and devastating damage was in the Sylmar area and "The Sylmar Earthquake" was a name the media latched onto. The southern California soil shook violently the morning of February 9, 1971. The lower numbers of the intensity scale generally deal with the manner in which the earthquake is felt by people. English: The 1971 San Fernando earthquake in the San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles County, California. Severe damage of the dam during the 1971 San Fernando earthquake forced residents to evacuate homes in a 6-mile-long area down the valley. The San Fernando Valley lies above the north-dipping 1971 Sylmar and south-dipping 1994 Northridge earthquake faults. It lasted about 60 seconds, and, in that brief span of time, took 65 lives, injured more than 2,000, and caused property damage estimated at $505 million. There are various names for this earthquake. The spatio-temporal variation of seismicity prior to the 1971 San Fernando, California, earthquake is studied for the area within 35 km of the epicenter. San Fernando Earthquake, 1971 This destructive earthquake occurred in a sparsely populated area of the San Gabriel Mountains, near San Fernando. The earthquake that rocked the northern San Fernando Valley, near Sylmar measured magnitude 6.6 on the Richter magnitude scale. The 1971 San Fernando earthquake (also known as the Sylmar earthquake) occurred in the early morning of February 9 in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains in southern California.The unanticipated thrust earthquake had a moment magnitude of 6.5 or 6.7 (as determined by several independent institutions) and had a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme). C. R. Allen and his co‐workers assigned the main shock parameters: 34°24.7′N, 118°24.0′W, focal depth h = 8.4 km, and local magnitude ML = 6.4. February 9, 1971 — Freeway overpass at the 5-14 split (Newhall Pass) as it appeared on the day of the Sylmar-San Fernando Earthquake.. UPI Telephoto, 6x8½ inches. 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