It is theorized that this earthquake, an appreciably-large tremor in its own right, was actually triggered by the Landers earthquake of June 28, 1992, the epicenter of which was some 200 km to the southeast! (A similar cause-effect relationship is attributed to a magnitude 3.9 earthquake in Pasadena and the magnitude 5.6 Little Skull Mountain earthquake in Nevada, both the day after the Landers mainshock.) This raised concern over the possibility that a great earthquake on a segment of the San Andreas fault zone, even well outside of the Los Angeles region, could spawn damaging aftershocks on the faults beneath the Los Angeles basin, which themselves could prove more dangerous to inhabitants of the area than a magnitude 8.0 earthquake on the San Andreas, some distance away.


REFERENCES