Talk:List of earthquakes in California

May 2009 Earthquakes

This is absolutely useless. Why is this here? Earthquakes happen all the time here, no big deal. I'd imagine the only reason someone put this nonsense here is because of the hype of the impending "Big One." Newsflash, the "Big One" was supposed to be here decades ago. My grandma told me that when she moved to California in 1964 that they were talking about it then, too.

Roswell created alien hype. Then the Commies were 'a coming. What the f*ck. Take this bull off.--GnarlyLikeWhoa (talk) 20:49, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Not to mention, the earthquake did not occur in California. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.130.91.71 (talk) 07:07, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

2010 Baja California earthquake

The earthquake's epicenter is in Mexico, however, because this was such a large quake so close to the border, and because there were aftershocks in California itself, I think the entry should be included on this list. Until there is a good reason stated otherwise, let's not delete it. Somnlaut (talk) 16:25, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

The fault rupture looks like it just managed to extend into California, so it's very much a California earthquake as much as it is Mexico. RapidR (talk) 20:37, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

If it is to be included then why does the list not include the 1892 earthquake that took place in the same region? The meaning of "in California" in the title isn't well-defined if we take it to indicate something beyond the location of the epicenter. 198.70.193.2 (talk) 22:40, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

The earthquake hit California, even if the epicenter was outside the borders. If the 1892 earthquake was similar then let's include it too.   Will Beback  talk  22:54, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't think I know enough to suggest a concrete set of guidelines, but perhaps any part of the "fault rupture" overlapping boundaries, beyond just the epicenter, would be a good criteria, since the shaking intensity seems to radiate outward from a line segment rather than a point. Another idea would be to include earthquakes which are felt above a certain intensity in the bounded region. It seems intuitive that earthquakes with a significant impact on the region should be included. If we know enough about the 1892 quake under this criteria, then I see no reason not to include it. Somnlaut (talk) 04:55, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

I went ahead and added the 1892 quake. Some research revealed that it was definitely in the same area and strongly felt in San Diego and Los Angeles. USGS calls it the Imperial Valley earthquake, which is the name I decided to keep, although this is at odds with SCEDC and a journal article associated with USGS which call it the 1892 Laguna Salada Earthquake. Interesting similarities between these quakes... Somnlaut (talk) 05:35, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Magnitude type not specified

The measurement system for Magnitude isn't specified here, so this column doesn't provide a useful or accurate comparison point for these quakes vs. any others. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.164.210.234 (talk) 20:33, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

 Done I've added a column for magnitude type. Dawnseeker2000 03:23, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

Forecasts

I have added a link to a new article, California earthquake forecast. And I would suggest a new section in this article (because it is a topic of great public interest) with a brief discussion of earthquake forecasting/prediction. I can suggest some references if anyone is interested. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 18:44, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

7.2 Northern California

How come the 6.8 magnitude earthquake 50 miles west of Eureka was added but the 7.2 earthquake 100 miles west of Eureka, back in 2005 wasn't added?http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eqinthenews/2005/usziae/#details I think I might add it.. --Prcc27 (talk) 02:24, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Request to merge

Request to merge 2014 Eureka Earthquake with another page. --Prcc27 (talk) 05:02, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

2014 La Habra, California Earthquake!

No article for the 2014 La Habra Earthquake? Interesting; seeing as total damage is likely to surpass that of the 2008 Chino Hills Earthquake which does have an article.--Subman758 (talk) 00:17, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

This earthquake was a 5.1 and should definitely be added! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:32C7:9170:9D9E:C39D:6E45:3377 (talk) 05:39, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

 Done The NGDC's significant earthquake database describes the event's effects as "Severe" with 10.8 million in damage. Dawnseeker2000 03:22, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

How Big Does a Quake Have to Be?

Does this page really need to list piddly 4.1 quakes? That isn't even a decent-sized aftershock. Should there be some kind of criteria (e.g. magnitude >= 6.0 or a fatality) for a quake to be listed here?

Yes, good question. There needs to be proper selection criteria (see WP:LISTV#INC) that distinguishes notable events from non-notable events. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:28, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

 Done – I've begun adding a footer in our lists that states a minimum inclusion criteria. The encyclopedia should only be mentioning events that had some effects (damage, injuries, or deaths). Dawnseeker2000 16:04, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

Focus

Was made aware of list guidelines fairly recently, and realized that the restructuring and content additions that I've been making are off track, and want to post my intentions to get this list focused on the common selection criteria for stand alone lists. That means a healthy amount of content (5,000–7,500 characters) will be removed. The events that were added were of strong to severe intensity, but that doesn't necessarily mean they had impact that was noteworthy, and most of them will be removed. There are some exceptions though, and I'll retain those. The list has become a little unwieldy, so the removal should be good, and closer to being featured content. Dawnseeker2000 03:13, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

1906 San Francisco Earthquake

There are several entries in this list that peg their region as "Bay Area". Since the epicenter for the 1906 quake was right off the coast of San Francisco Proper, why is its region listed as "North-Central", as in the border of Northern California and Central California? I would expect "Bay Area" would be the perfect designation, but if there is other extant logic, I'd like to hear it. -:-  AlpinWolf   -:- 04:08, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

The effects of the very large event in 1906 were severe in Northern and Central California (from the North Coast to Monterey Bay). Dawnseeker2000 05:37, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

(Rather belatedly, but in case the question arises again.) "Bay Area" is a more limited region than "Northern and Central California". And Northern and Central get lumped together because they lack a boundary as distinct and as notable as the one between Central and Southern California – roughly, just north of the the offset in the San Andreas fault. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:10, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

Use an authoritative earthquake catalog?

The last edit to the article got me wondering: why not use the USGS earthquake catalog (see https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/search/) to get authoritative data, particularly the magnitudes? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:51, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

Names

Big shakes are given names, such as Sylmar in 1971 and Northridge in 1991. It is unfortunate that the names are not included here. I remember there was a Whittier Narrows. There was another shake I was trying to find and I would recognize it by name. Its magnitude was over 7 in the southern California area but far from civilization so there was little damage. Sam Tomato (talk) 07:47, 11 February 2018 (UTC)

Is there a question or suggestion here? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:43, 11 February 2018 (UTC)

I want to acknowledge that when I first started reshaping this list in 2014 I was cognizant of changing the format to one that excluded the titles of the articles (quite a few of the lists still include them). While the titles on this list can still be found either by hovering over the date to reveal the link or in the navigation template at the bottom of the article, the hover over trick won't work for mobile devices, but I think that the date-linking method and some of the other changes contribute to an easier-to-use presentation on this list. Dawnseeker2000 00:52, 16 February 2018 (UTC)

I agree that names would be useful here. Is there any reason not to add the site name? I'd be willing to do it, and I think there's plenty of room to accommodate it. Let me know if you have suggestions for format. E.g., it could either be placed in a column of its own or in the same column as date to save room if sortability on name is not needed. Gould363 (talk) 00:32, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

I'm not sure that names are all that useful here and there really isn't room for an additional column. If a person has the region and the date, then clicks on the link for the article, the name will be presented. Dawnseeker2000 00:41, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Yes but, as noted above, if the person DOESN'T have the region and the date but knows they are looking for the Northridge quake, which is a very likely scenario, then they're up a creek. They either need to go elsewhere and look up the exact date of the quake and then sort by date, which is annoying and inefficient, or they need to find it by trial and error by mousing over ones that look like they're in the right area and approximately right date range, which is annoying and inefficient. What's more, if someone wants to peruse this page to see how various historic earthquakes stack up against each other, which is an even more likely scenario, they're going to leave less than enlightened.

If space is an issue, there are other ways to save a column; e.g., references don't need to be in a separate column. But I don't really see that space IS an issue. Html tables resize automatically to fit the screen, and this one displays quite nicely at the default zoom in a browser window that's less than half my screen width.Gould363 (talk) 01:19, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

@Gould363: You make a good argument, but honestly, you would get better results with the search box instead of relying on a list. I searched on “Whittier Narrows earthquake”, “Northridge earthquake”, and “Long Beach earthquake”, and each time I landed right on the page I wanted. (I ended up creating a redirect for “Imperial Valley earthquake”, though.) The more I examine this list, the more it makes sense to me to leave it the way it is. Cheers! — Gorthian (talk) 04:49, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

(Oh, and space IS an issue on my iPad — I can’t tell you the number of pages on Wikipedia where I have to zoom in to be able to read the text because of a too-wide table!) — Gorthian (talk) 04:54, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

I'm inclined towards listing the common name (without the year). Granted, if I simply wanted to find the "Northridge" quake and (as usual) couldn't think of the year, the WP search box would get me there. But for me the more likely scenario is sort the list by some criterion, and then want to see at a glance which quakes are included without having to hover over each item individually.

It would also make it clearer that some of these entries are for aftershocks, or when a single earthquake (e.g., Vacaville–Winters) is listed under two different dates, and for two different areas, or that the two entries for 1992-06-28 and "Inland Empire" are actually different quakes. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:23, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

 Done I've added a new column for the names. Some tweaking of the existing columns was necessary but it looks fine on desktop and mobile. Dawnseeker2000 12:23, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Looks good. The "Deaths" column is a bit wide, but if you change the entry for the S.F. quake to "700 to 3,000" I think it will close up a bit. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:08, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Channel Islands Earthquake

Does anyone have anymore information to add to the list the 5.3 earthquake that happened two days ago offshore Los Angeles? I’m not sure on the MMI for example for the quake. WikiEditor668 (talk) 19:19, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

"2023 Ojai earthquake" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect 2023 Ojai earthquake has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 August 21 § 2023 Ojai earthquake until a consensus is reached. TartarTorte 20:34, 21 August 2023 (UTC)