For the second day in a row, many Santa Barbara County residents on Friday night felt the shaking from a large earthquake centered in the Mojave Desert.
The magnitude-7.1 quake was recorded at 8:19 p.m., with the epicenter about 10½ miles northeast of Ridgecrest in Kern County, about 159 miles northeast of Santa Barbara, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Other reports put the quake intensity at 6.9.
The quake occurred at a relatively shallow depth of about a half-mile, in an area not far from where Thursday’s magnitude-6.4 earthquake struck.
Santa Barbara County residents reported seconds-long rolling motions that caused hanging lights and pans to sway for some time. There were no reports of damage or injuries locally.
Numerous other earthquakes were reported around the same time, with a 5.0-magnitude quake occurring three minutes before and quakes as strong as 4.2 afterward. Aftershocks rattled late into the night, including two at 5.5.
Several structure fires, gas leaks, widespread power outages, cracked buildings and roadways, and rock slides were reported in and around Ridgecrest. News reports said there were “multiple injuries,” but details were not immediately available.
The California Highway Patrol office in Bakersfield reported that a large rock slide had closed Highway 178 in the Kern River Canyon area between Bakersfield and Lake Isabella.
In Los Angeles, the earthquake shook Dodger Stadium while Dodgers second baseman Kiké Hernández was batting in the bottom of the fourth inning. The Dodgers went on to lose to the San Diego Padres, 3-2.
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About 140 miles south of Ridgecrest, the earthquake was captured on the Big Bear Lake Bald Eagle Cam, startling a mother eagle and her chick as their nest swayed before its tree suddenly rocked wildly.
Both the mother, known as Jackie, and her surviving chick, Simba, were perched side by side on a limb at the time. In the video, Jackie appears to sense vibrations and immediately flies away. When the full force hits, Simba quickly hops into the center of the nest and looks around uneasily.
Jackie can be heard chirping nearby for quite a while afterward, before Simba eventually settles in for the night.
Friday’s earthquakes followed Thursday morning’s magnitude-6.4 quake that was centered in Searles Valley, in northwest San Bernardino County near the Kern County border.
Seismologists said Thursday’s earthquake likely was a foreshock to Friday’s temblor, and there is a 5 percent chance of an even larger quake occurring in the next few days.
“Like any quake, today’s M7.1 has a 1 in 20 (chance) of being followed by something even bigger,” seismologist Lucy Jones, founder of the Dr. Lucy Jones Center for Science and Society, said on Twitter.
“Smaller quakes — M5s are likely and a M6 is quite possible.”
Scientists also have calculated that the latest quake was some 10 times stronger than Thursday’s.
Experts believe these quakes were on a strike-slips fault, which the USGS defined as vertical (or nearly vertical) fractures where the blocks have mostly moved horizontally.
If the block opposite an observer looking across the fault moves to the right, the slip style is termed right lateral; if the block moves to the left, the motion is termed left lateral, according to USGS.
The two quakes were Southern California’s strongest since the magnitude-7.1 Hector Mine Earthquake in 1999. That earthquake caused limited damage and just a few injuries in the sparsely populated area in and around Twentynine Palms Marine Corps Base.
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— Noozhawk North County editor Janene Scully can be reached at jscully@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.