November 29, 2009
By Steve Timko
Reno Gazette Journal
Sixteen small earthquakes hit in the area of Sun Valley and Wildcreek Golf Course on Thanksgiving and on Friday, but no damage was reported and residents had a hard time even feeling them.
The Nevada Seismological Laboratory noted the unusual earthquake sequence in a statement on Friday. The two largest were magnitudes 2.3 and 2.2.
Darrell Little felt one small one in Spanish Springs one valley over on Friday.
“It was quite a small one and the dog sleeping next to me even didn’t wake up,” Little said. “It definitely was an earthquake. It felt like the house got shoved a little bit. I could hear the creaking of the walls as the house moved just ever so slightly.”
He felt a couple of the large ones from the swarm that hit the Mogul area in 2008, but this was not like that.
“If I wasn’t lying flat on the bed I probably would have never felt it,” Little said.
Estephanie Tittle lives in the south end Sun Valley but felt nothing.
“I’m from the San Francisco Bay area, so I’m kind of insensitive to them,” Tittle said. “Unless it’s over a certain magnitude, you think it’s part of the home. . . . We’re used to it.”
She thinks people who live in homes with solid foundations might notice smaller quakes better than people who live in homes on pylons or pillars.
“Small vibrations you don’t really notice,” Tittle said.
There was another sequence of earthquakes earlier this year just west of Sun Valley, said Ken Smith, the seismic network manager with the Nevada Seismology Laboratory. These, Smith said, just happen to be hitting in an urban area.
“It’s just another swarm of earthquakes that we happen to have around here,” Smith said.
There’s smaller earthquakes on Saturday but below the threshold of what the laboratory reports.
“It’s definitely quieter than on Friday,” he said.
The laboratory will continue to monitor the quakes.
http://www.rgj.com/article/20091129/NEWS/911290341/1321/16-small-quakes-hit-Sun-Valley-Sparks