A new fault line in California, named the Salton Trough Fault, was discovered running parallel to the San Andreas Fault.
The discovery was published in a study on Wednesday by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography from the University of California, San Diego.
According to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the new fault line could have an impact on current seismic hazard models in the region, which is known to experience earthquakes fairly often.
“To aid in accurately assessing seismic hazard and reducing risk in a tectonically active region, it is crucial to correctly identify and locate faults before earthquakes happen,” said Valerie Sahakian, a Scripps alumna, and lead author of the study.
According to Scripps, the research team used multi-channel seismic data, ocean-bottom seismometers, and light detection and ranging to accurately map the deformation within the different layers that are located at the sea’s bottom. That’s when they noticed the new fault line.
“The location of the fault in the eastern Salton Sea has made imaging it difficult and there is no associated small seismic events, which is why the fault was not detected earlier,” said Scripps geologist Neal Driscoll, the lead principal investigator of the NSF-funded project, and coauthor of the study. “We employed the marine seismic equipment to define the deformation patterns beneath the sea that constrained the location of the fault.”
This new finding comes after a recent swarm of 200 small earthquakes at the Southern California inland sea, according to USA Today.
A recent U.S. Geological Survey said the swarm increased the possibility of a bigger earthquake, or the “Big One,” USA Today noted. However, officials said that the risk went back to normal on Tuesday.
Sahakian said discoveries like this new fault are becoming more rare, especially in Southern California, and this Salton Trough Fault was difficult to find because it’s located under the water, USA Today noted.