Owens Lake Quakes Leftovers from 1930s?

Los Angeles (myFOXla.com) - The string of earthquakes this week along the upper reaches of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, near Owens Lake, is a continuation of a a series of quakes that began in 1933, seismologists in Los Angeles said today.

A magnitude 5.2 quake shook the Owens Lake area Thursday evening, part of a recent chain of hundreds of quakes that began rattling that area early that morning, when the first quake struck, a magnitude 5.0 shaker.

The quake boom is part of a series of a dozen major quake events dating back to 1933, highlighted by the 5.8 magnitude Ridgecrest Earthquake of 1995. The area had been relatively quiet, however, between 2001 and now.

Scientists at the Southern California Earthquake Center today said the series of aftershocks was extremely vigorous, and further indicate strike-slip activity along faults that line this section of the "Eastern Sierra Rift Zone," the boundary between the Sierra Nevada range to the west and the basin and range country stretching east through Nevada and Utah.

Scientists led by the USGS's Egill Haukson and Sue Hough said the quakes were felt widely across Southern California, in the San Francisco Bay Area and as far east as Las Vegas. Strong shaking was experienced by people in the U.S. 395 gas station town of Olancha, and the small town of Lone Pine.

The same series of faults is blamed for the massive 1872 Lone Pine Earthquake, which was as large as the great 1906 San Francisco quake, and caused damage in Los Angeles.